McGill students, living up to their overachiever stereotype, are always looking for ways to enhance their university experience. That’s precisely why year after year many McGillians participate in the McGill Exchange/Study Abroad Program, taking on the role of international student and returning with more than another stamp in their passports.
Students typically leave on exchange sometime during their third year. This gives them two full years to adapt to and understand McGill’s academic and social environment. Yet in speaking to multiple returning exchange students, I noticed a common trend among them. They all expressed a great deal of trouble re-acclimating to the McGill environment.
“You forget that the lifestyle at McGill is so difficult to maintain,” says Ari Jaffe, U3 Management, who spent last semester on exchange in Bangkok, Thailand, “At McGill you have to be a superhuman. Exchange was nothing like that.”
Whether they’d gone to Bangkok, Sydney, London, or Sao Paulo I found these students’ symptoms followed a similar pattern, ultimately leaving them in a reverse culture shock state when they return to the Roddick Gates.
The process begins once you’re admitted to the program. “It’s all so surreal until the plane actually lands,” said Diana Stern, a U3 IDS and Management student who spent last semester at the University of Leeds in the UK, “There is a period of shock when you arrive to realize that you have to build a life in a new city.”
However, the reality of exchange quickly kicks in. Proudly bearing the McGill name, you’re warmly welcomed by your new community. Between the travelling, new friends, and the ease of pass/fail courses, the bulk of these five months are spent more as a getaway than an academic experience. But what goes up must come down.
“The thought of leaving exchange behind was heartbreaking,” said Jaffe.
This is where most recently returned students find themselves. “It was surprisingly difficult to readjust to the McGill environment,” said Stern. “You realize after experiencing student life somewhere else, the competitive nature and stress level that is synonymous with McGill is unique to it as well.” Acclimatizing back to McGill requires more than suiting up in Canada Goose.
McGill provides students with the opportunity to study abroad at some of the world’s most reputable institutions, so the level of academics is relatively similar. Why then are McGill students under so much more stress? Alana Romoff, a U3 cultural studies student explained, “We tend to put so much emphasis on the hardships of this school that we take for granted the great things that make McGill such a positive personal experience for us. My friends at McGill are what I came to cherish most about university.”
Jaffe and Stern agreed that the well-rounded student we idealize here is an unnecessary standard worldwide.
We don’t need to be so concerned with being in the top five per cent of our class in order to feel accomplished. So in this pre-finals season of multiple papers and second round midterms, let us use the example of our peers overseas and view our degrees not as a means to an end, but as a larger journey outside of Leacock, Shulich and Redpath.
