On Study Abroad and Cultural Immersion

This post was orignally a comment on Leigh's blog, but it got really long.

I studied abroad as a high schooler in Chile and LOVED the host family experience, and being surrounded by Chileans, immersed in the culture.

In college, I did my senior year in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. The way this program was set up, we had all of our classes with other American students, and a language class with other foreigners. This is despite the fact that many of us were Spanish majors and/or were very proficient in Spanish. There were no Spanish students in our classes, because all of the history, literature, and humanities classes were taught in Gallego. Sooo, I tried to hang out with mostly Spanish students the whole year. I really wanted to immerse myself into the culture like I had in Chile. Both of my roommates were Spanish, and I met a couple of people through them. I didn't hang out with the other students in my program very much at first. But it was hard to meet other Spaniards until I made friends with a few other American kids from my program who were also interested in hanging out with Spaniards and integrating a bit into the culture. Between the four of us we were friends with 8 or 10 Spaniards and we'd hang out with each other and each other's roommates as well as other Spanish acquaintances. We spoke lots of Spanish, because we were often with our Spanish friends. We only switched to English when we were on our own. We sort of avoided other exchange students, because we wanted the immersion experience, and they may have thought we were rude. Looking back, I might have hung out with the other American students just a hair bit more, to get to know them, and not be rude. But really I only had a year to live in Spain, so it was definitely worth it to limit my contact with other Americans. I think making friends with a couple other gringos also seeking to immerse themselves in the culture is one of the best strategies for making friends with the locals while abroad. With more of you, you automatically multiply the amount of natives you meet. Plus you can converse with the other Americans about the culture and get feedback about questions you might have about your experience of the foreign culture.

Another good way to integrate into the culture is by joining a group, club, etc. I met a ton of people through my capoeira groups in Chile. But any kind of group works, like choir, volunteering, perhaps joining a gym and taking classes there, etc. Actually this is a great way to meet people and make friends in general, wherever you live!!