I read both articles from the perspective of somebody who has studied abroad, and as an employee of the Study Abroad Office and therefore somebody who interacts quite extensively with study abroad program providers. My ultimate reaction to both articles is “Is all of this really necessary?”. Before reading Vande Berg, I was unaware of the particularly different approaches to creating a study abroad experience, and I did not find their argument to be all too convincing. The excerpt centered on the idea of students feeling “transformed” by their time abroad, and how to actually create meaningful experiences; but it then ended with a lengthy explanation of why students’ (particularly, female students as identified by consistent pronoun usage) self-reports of ‘transformation’ cannot be trusted. The author recommends testing students: but for what purpose? Is study abroad only valuable if students meet a certain criteria? Will testing students on study abroad competencies help universities determine who deserves to go abroad? Their theoretical approach to intercultural competencies seems to negate the human experience involved in study abroad.

Similarly, Bennet discusses the aspects of intercultural communication, and how one can become more competent. Speaking from my own experience, having learned about intercultural communication between Americans and Danes before my time abroad would not have significantly changed how I approached interactions with Danes. When you interact with a person, your natural tendencies will come through without recognizing it, and conscious control is difficult. For example, I knew in advance that Danes tend to be more blunt and harsher in their jokes than in America; that didn’t stop me from being shocked by certain things said. Or, I learned that they don’t consider “how are you” to be an appropriate question for a casual interaction; yet 12 months into my abroad experience, I still said it out of habit. I do recognize that my experience is informed by the fact that both of the cultures I was interacting with – American and Danish – are low context cultures, and therefore it was not uncomfortable to openly talk about miscommunications or confusion. However, I ultimately believe that communication habits are fairly ingrained in us by the time college students study abroad, and I think that immersion is the only way to challenge those habits.

Tori referenced these ideas in their response – immersion and transformation. I agree with their statement that immersion – despite the additional pieces discussed in the article – still seems to me the most effective way to truly experience and learn from a culture. Like Tori said about transformation, there is a pressure to feel transformed by the study abroad experience that can influence the comfort with which students feel they can discuss their experiences abroad. I encourage us, especially in this class, to challenge this idea of transformation and to consider that perhaps we’re simply using the wrong word. While I don’t feel like I was transformed by my time abroad, because I cannot identify singular notions of who I was before and after my year abroad (because humans are complex and multifaceted), I do know that the experiences affected me in many ways.