How Studying Abroad "At Home" Solved My Identity Crisis
Everyone says studying abroad changes you. It throws you into a new place—into a new culture —and forces you to learn how to navigate it all while trying to make friends, do well in your classes, and figure out the cheapest grocery store near your new house. And it’s true!!
But for me, it was a little different: I studied abroad at home. I am French, and I chose to spend the 2023-24 academic year living with my family in Paris, a city I am very familiar with after spending every summer since I was born taking its metros and wandering its museums. I studied at Sciences Po, a household name in Western Europe and a school my grandmother predicted I would attend in 2016, eight years ago.
So I wasn’t in a new culture or a new place, but that is not to say—to go back to the cliche—that studying abroad did not challenge and change me. My issue was that even though I am French, having never lived in Paris meant that to its inhabitants, I wasn’t a Parisian, and to the French students at Sciences Po completing their whole undergraduate degrees there, I wasn’t a French student but just another international student that would be gone in 4 months.
While both claims had some truth to them, it was still upsetting because I was a French student and was as Parisian as anyone else, and wanted to be seen as such. At the same time, I was scared that by trying to achieve this I could lose the part of myself that identified as an international student. Therein lied my challenge: reconnecting with French culture and becoming “truly” Parisian, all while not losing my identity as an international student.
And let me tell you, this was a long—but very fun and rewarding—process. Sciences Po was obviously integral in that process, allowing me to build French and international friend groups at school. I made friends with the other French students through sports like martial arts, learning the most recent slang by grappling with other students and hearing what they threw out both in frustration and in victory, and discovering currently popular artists. I also bonded with other international students through my classes and things like Model United Nations, talking about their home cultures and the least expected causes of culture shock.
But the two things that truly helped me were dancing—surprisingly—and traveling— much less surprisingly.
In France, we have a dance called “le Rock”, which could be a cousin of what we call swing dancing in the US. It is so popular that in most cities, people gather on Friday or Saturday nights with speakers to dance outside in public spaces, and most schools have clubs dedicated to learning and dancing it. I had always wanted to learn how to dance it, but its lack of popularity abroad, and my limited time with French family members meant I never learned as much as I wanted before leaving and having to start over again the next summer.
When I found out that in Paris students and young professionals gather every Friday evening on the banks of the Seine under the statues and lampposts of the bridge Alexandre III, I jumped at the chance to learn. I went almost every week, making some very close French friends that I still speak to today. I learnt how to dance, so many dance-specific social protocols that are impossible to learn if you don’t go to these types of events, and learnt about which social issues people my age were most interested in. It was there that I met the head of Science’s Po Rock association, and yet again I jumped on the chance to learn more and attended every event they held. I met other international students that loved Rock like I did, and we bonded over Rock, its absence from our home countries, and other topics. This dance, as an activity but also as a social space, connected me to a part of French culture I had always watched longingly from afar and helped me keep making new French and international friends. Most importantly, however, it allowed me to merge my two identities by meeting other international students who faced the same “French but not French” issues and who were connecting more to the culture through dance like I was.
The second thing that helped the most was traveling. Being an international student and traveling a lot when I was younger gave me a deep sense of wanderlust, which over the years I have learnt is what keeps me feeling like an international student. Knowing that I was scared of losing that while trying to connect more deeply with French culture, I decided to do just as much “abroad"ing as “studying”, and planned trips to Portugal, Spain, Germany, and a few other countries. Some were solo adventures, some were with international friends, and, most importantly, a few were with French friends. Being able to connect with these people, and through them our culture, while feeding the international student part of my identity was a beautiful healing experience. I felt like both parts of me were no longer competing but thriving alongside each other, healing an identity crisis I had never honestly acknowledged.
Now that I am back in Berkeley, I look back on my year abroad with profound gratitude for myself for finally healing this identity issue, but also for the friends I made and every experience I had. I am who I am today because of that year, and would not change anything about it if I had the chance to do it again. Like I said, studying abroad really does change you.
For you, reader, this should be your takeaway: most of our identities cannot be condensed down to one culture, one place, or one set of values. Who we are is a mosaic of everything we’ve seen, all the places we’ve lived, and the adventures we’ve experienced. Who we are cannot be simplified. That is why as we move through life, and especially as we move through college, it is important to find communities and activities that feed each part of who we are, and discover new parts of our identities. Don’t be afraid to keep up your hobbies, don’t be afraid to try new things and take on new challenges. Believe in yourself and remind yourself of who you are, and before you know it, you will become the person you’ve always wanted to be.