Clermont-Ferrand, France

Why I chose to go to France:I chose the program in Clermont-Ferrand because it offers the language and culture curriculum that best suits me, and also offers the most opportunities for learning. I want to do some kind of intercultural work with languages after completing my BA, and the program at the École Supérieure de Commerce offers an excellent next step in my progress toward that goal.

I plan to be as French as I can while I am in Clermont, while still remaining American in my own way. The balancing act is getting the most out of the intercultural experience without denying my own culture. Finding this happy medium is what I expect to do while abroad. My goal is not to become French: it is to gain the love and respect of a French family while learning about French culture as an American foreign exchange student. I am trying hard to go into this experience without many more expectations than that. I will prepare as much as I can by learning about myself, and leave the rest for when I get there!

Another intercultural experience: Growing up in Lansing, Michigan, I found that most of my friends were of ethnic and cultural backgrounds very different from my own. My middle school was populated with white, black, Mexican, and Asian Pacific students, and I also had a certain number of classmates from low-income families.

As for myself, I had crooked teeth, an awkward frame, and dorky clothing, and it was the rowdy, popular black girls in my class who taught me how to use hand lotion after gym to keep the frizz out of my too-long red hair. I soon found that those classmates who did not look like me but were in fact more like me, were the ones who became my best friends. “Birds of a feather may flock together,” but our matching feathers were found well beyond the surface.

My closest friends and I occasionally talked about this phenomenon. One day, Tuan (male, Vietnamese), Kelieda (female, African American), Twyla (female, African American) and I (the working class redhead) asked each other why we got along so well. We decided that it was largely thanks to our ability to "meet in the middle" — in a place that was neither entirely their culture or entirely mine. But it also had a lot to do with our individual personalities. We have kept our friendship strong not only because I can dance just as well to hip hop as Kelieda, or that Twyla can drop her culturally black speech in a job interview: we are friends because we understand each other and have learned to appreciate both the differences and the delightful similarities that brought us together in the first place.
Bottom line, I feel that being open is the only way to be successful in today’s world. I was not afraid to talk to the girls who put lotion in their hair, and I made better friends the farther I got from physical and surface similarities. The more different we are in the ways that don’t matter (race, gender, ethnic background), the easier it is to understand all the other things that make people who they are. Growing up in such a diverse setting has prepared me well for living amongst people who are different from me: people I will have to work hard to understand, and with whom I will enjoy living in a climate of mutual respect.

How this class helped me prepare for study abroad: Our intercultural communication course has introduced me to concepts that I would not have considered in preparing for my experience abroad. I would have tried my hardest to find out everything under the sun about French people and French culture before I left, and would have completely neglected to look at myself. We’ve learned that it may be more important to understand one’s own cultural tendencies in order to anticipate where one might run into difficulties adjusting to a foreign culture. I now know things about myself, know what to look for and where to expect problems, even if I do not yet know exactly what they will be or how to fix them. I have also learned a few ways to reflect on my experiences as they come up, which will help me learn from my mistakes. After all, it is not enough to simply experience something: it is essential to sit back and evaluate what happened in order to get any significance from the experience.

What I identified as the greatest challenges facing me as I began my study abroad program: I know I will encounter problems abroad that are probably unavoidable. Homesickness is an inevitability that I hope to combat with the help of my host family. Instead of alienating them while I long for my family back home, I hope to be able to ask them for help and support. If all goes well, this approach will both soothe my homesickness and build stronger ties with my French family. I also plan to combat my perfectionist personality complex by simply stepping out on a limb. My biggest fear is that I’ll hesitate to talk to people — that I'll be too afraid of making a mistake, too afraid of speaking with an American accent, too afraid of not knowing how to start a conversation. On the other hand, I am an incredibly verbal person, and though I know not to smile at French strangers on the street, I still might seem like too much of a hyper-friendly American tourist sometimes. I might be perceived as being too friendly. Finding a way to function successfully in each culture will be a delicate matter, but I need to be sure that my fear of making a mistake doesn't keep me from trying.

I need to learn to be comfortable in French culture without rejecting American culture. Partial assimilation, I fear, is well within my nature. I may enjoy France and French culture so much that it may be difficult for me to return to the States. I am not too worried about fitting back in with my own family, but I do worry about being gone for such a long time, adopting French attitudes, and abandoning pieces of U.S. culture, and then returning home less understanding and accepting of the place I grew up. I do not want my experience in France to accelerate my disapproval of U.S. hegemony over the world. I do not want to come home even more disappointed than I already am, regarding, for instance, the U.S. war in Iraq. It would be frustrating to come home feeling too French to fit in any longer.

See contact page to arrange a speaking engagement.

Read excerpts from my letters home.