Culture shock

CULTURE SHOCK
In the global world, we can change our living country many times. It could be because of journey, work or study. They are different situations but all of them has a same problem, “Culture Shock”. For example students always likes to study abroad, because of many reasons. They prepare themselves to face with hard days, and problems. Nevertheless almost all of them face with culture shock when they become a new life with new people. According to this reason, their study goes to be hard. They cannot be able to be good in their studies, they have to do many things together with study and facing with new culture causes them with psychological problems.
All this things also happened to me. Culture shock is to strong thing that even I felt it again when I go back to my country for holiday from Germany to Azerbaijan. I was adapted German culture in 1 year and when I go to my home country everything was strange for me. That’s why I decideto summarize this topic. We will look explanation and solution of culture shock in this summary.
Contact with culturally unfamiliar people and places can be unsettling, and the term ‘culture shock’ is frequently used to describe how people react to novel or unaccustomed situations [3]. Culture is not a general thing. It depends on areas, sex, and so on. Cultures are hermetically sealed and geographically-based containers is clearly not an appropriate conception of culture intoday’s globalized world, it is also incorrect to claim that national cultures are now meaningless and that the developed world is currently a transcultural entity without borders [1]. Culture shock is the result of national culture. Everyone has a culture which he or she grows, works, and lives.
Because of that difference, people are having trouble to adapt new culture. Each culture have unique principles, laws, even time and space [4]. Same behavior can be strange in one culture despite it is good in another culture. According to one research between German and U.S teams, we can prove how national culture is important. 125 individuals participated in 30 meetings for the research [2]. The research explains that German teams have more Problem-Focused, Procedural and Counteractive Behaviors. But US American teams have Solution-Focused and Socioemotional Behaviors [2]. This is the prove of “national culture is relevant”.
This problem will be also the problem of the future. Whatever we can do, it will just decrease the effect of this problem, will not solve. To decrease the impact of this problem, there are orientation programs in the universities to help new students. Because culture shock is the result of insufficient information of every new things, so students being unsocial and tries not contact with anyone. In this point, universities tries to help new student. Also students should interact with people and create new relations [5]. Ongoing researches shows that foreign students be susceptible to psychological illness, as well as more academic problems. But in fact there is no a general theory of this problem [5].
In the conclusion we can say that culture shock is inevitable if you change your living place. The best way against that is to search more about new culture which we will face, and we should have more communication with person who is from new culture. It will help to adapt easier to new culture.
International setting of culture shock: According to statistical data, more and more young adults decide to travel abroad, in more developed countries than their own, to learn and enrich their country upon their return. According to specialists, there are four areas in which students may have problems. When writing an essay introduction, you could focus on these: language skills, mental health, study approach, and study environment.

Language skill issues: The first problem you should address in your essay on culture shock is the language skill issue. One of the aspects to think about is listening. Not all international students have good enough language skills to understand what their teachers or fellow students say when addressing an academic topic. Since they aren’t able to understand everything, they will have gaps in their knowledge, losing valuable information.

Another language problem is speaking. In many cases, international students prefer to avoid group discussions, and they believe their language skills aren’t good enough or that they might make mistakes. An additional issue is having other students laugh at them for having a funny accent or simply speaking the language as a foreigner. Make sure to mention in your culture shock essay that students aren’t afraid of group work itself, they are afraid of giving the wrong answer and being ridiculed for it. This may lead to anxiety, which will only make their academic results worse.

Having a different study approach. No matter whether you’re writing creative essays or writing a reflective essay, there needs to be some way for your teachers to assess your work and knowledge. You are already used to this, but a foreign student will always work based on the system in their own country. In some educational systems, students need to reproduce what the books or the teachers say without asking questions. In other cases, the courses are a dialogue between the teachers and students, and students are supposed to ask as many questions as possible. Because of these differences, a great student from Asia may not achieve such good performance in Europe or North America. This is something that all students must be aware of even before traveling to another country.

The health issue. Mental health should be another issue addressed in culture shock essays. It is fairly common for international students to be affected by depression. Leaving their own country and getting used to a new one can make students homesick and experience loneliness, loss of identity, isolation, stress, and loss of self-value and status. If they fail with their studies or underperform, most probably they will feel indignation and frustration, something that they wouldn’t have experienced in their home country. Such feelings will influence their physical health as well. They can experience loss of appetite, loss of energy, headaches, and gastrointestinal problems. Living in a foreign country may also mean that students don’t understand the healthcare system and won’t receive the help they need.

References

1. 
   P. J. Witchalls, ‘Is national culture still relevant?,’ interculture journal , vol. 11, 2012.
   
2. 
   N. Lehmann-Willenbrock, L. A. Meinecke and . A. A. Joseph, ‘Observing culture: Differences in U.S.- American and German team meeting behaviors,’ Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, vol. 17, pp. 252-271, 2013.
   
3. 
   S. Bocher, Culture Shock Due to Contact with Unfamiliar Cultures, Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, 2003.
   
4. 
   E. T. Hall and M. R. Hall, ‘Underlying Structures of Culture,’ Understanding Cultural Differences, vol. 1, 1990.
   
5. 
   A. Furnham, ‘ Education and culture shock,’ The Psychologist, vol. 17, pp. 16-19, 2004.