This document provides information and guidance to participants returning from an international exchange program. It discusses dealing with reverse culture shock and adjusting back to normal life. Suggestions include reflecting on and sharing experiences from the trip, keeping in touch with friends made abroad, and planning future trips. The document also outlines several ongoing programs with the organization for participants to remain involved through volunteering, internships, or leadership roles. The overall message is that adjusting takes time but there are ways to ease the transition and maintain an international mindset.

1. AIESEC GREECE 2014 – 2015
OutGoing Global Community Development Program

2. Dear Exchange Participants,
Since your experience abroad has come to an end,
let us welcome you back in Greece.
What have you done these past weeks?
Were you dancing salsa in Brazil? Or did you swim with sharks in North Africa?
Did you learn history in Italy?
Did you visit the castle of Dracula in
Romania?

3. Regardless where you were and what you did we sincerely hope that this program
helped you gain some skills and develop yourself and the society. This program was
about achieving your goals and this was our priority too.
However coming back to reality and everyday life here in Greece may have proven
more difficult than you had expected. As you have realized already everything here
is the same, your town, your school and work, the only different now is you.
Perhaps your friends will get tired of listening to your stories of your experience and
do not understand how hard it may be for you to adjust. Perhaps your life now
seems dull and not interested comparing to the 6 weeks you passed doing every day
something exceptional.
Whatever you are feeling right now, no matter how distant you feel from your friends
and family and how not creative you think your life is we would like to ensure you
that this situation is not permanent. It is very normal for every exchange participant
to feel this way after coming back for the internship to feel the exact same way. In
order to minimize the effect of your returning and make your reintegration as easy
as possible we have created this booklet. It contains information on how to infect on
your experience, how to deal with reverse cultural shock as well as a presentation
about AIESEC programs.
We wish you the best for your life from now own!

4. REFLECTING UPON YOUR EXPERIENCE
Reflecting upon your experience is almost important as your internship. You may go
through different things right now and not feel ready to go do this now but it
is essential not to delay more since now all your memories and thoughts are
fresh and vivid in your mind.
We have some questions for you to answer in
order to see what you gained from your internship!
So you should write your answers so as to be easy in the future to remember all
your experience abroad.
1. What was your project about and what exactly did you do?
2. What was your unique contribution in this project?
3. Did you use any of the skills and interests you had before the experience
at any point? And how?
4. What knowledge – skills did you gain?
5. What was the best part of your internship and why?
6. What was the worst part and how did you cope with it?
7. Do you feel that you have achieved something in your internship - was it
worthy? Did you achieve your goals?

5. 8. What challenges did you face and how did you react?
9. Did you experience ‘cultural shock’ in your internship and if yes how did
you deal with it?
10. How are you going to utilize what you have learned during your
experience to have a positive impact in your society?
 Last but not least, very important is to share your experience and
present it to others in order to become known what the program is and
what it offers. You can do it either through photos or through videos
and make the public!

6. REVERSE CULTURAL SHOCK
Probably you were prepared to face cultural shock before going to you
exchange and had been informed that it is going to be difficult for you to
adjust to a foreign country. But you managed to do it, to adjust and become
a bicultural person at no time. So, what happens now? Why are feeling like
a stranger in your own country? What you are experience is called Reverse
Cultural Shock.
What it is: it may take place returning to one's home culture after growing
accustomed to a new one. The affected person often finds this more
surprising and difficult to deal with than the original culture shock.
How can you prepare for it?
The best way to cope with reverse cultural shock is to accept the fact that
you are going to experience it and be prepared to deal with it before your
arrival home.

7.  Most of the people in your life will be interested in hearing your stories and
will want you to describe every single day of your internship. Some of them though
may not be so thrilled to listen to your experience every hour of each day. You should
respect that.
 Accept that you may not like the same things anymore. A Starbucks latte may
pale next to the Ethiopian coffee ceremony you attended last month.
 You may get bored more often than before. Getting back home may feel as you
are back to ‘the same old the same old’. You have to accept it and try to adjust in
your daily life.
 Find things that made you happy and fulfilled before your exchange. Try if they
interest you now.
 Some things may feel odd to you or at least completely different than what you
have gotten used to during your internship.
 Your routine has now changed. You may not try something different every day
of your life now but this is normal and you should live with it.
 Try to adjust some of the habits you developed during your internship in your
life now so as to mitigate the effect that reverse cultural shock has on you.

8. Dealing with the reverse cultural shock
All those things may indeed occur and you are definitely are not the same
as before. So how you deal with these changes and go back to your life
readily? Here are some ideas.
 Avoid staying at home.
Get in touch with your friends, go out and most importantly avoid
talking about your trip. Difficult as it may seem, try to talk about what
your friends were up to, what you have missed and what changed in
their lives. That’s right – most of your friends have listened about your
trip a thousand times, now is their turn.
 Keep in touch with your friends from the internship
Just because you have left doesn’t mean you disappear. Keep in touch
with the friends you made there, sent mail, share your situation, the
problems you are facing adjusting back. Probably they feel the same
and talking with them will help a lot. Besides, now you have friends
from all over the world – you should keep them.

9.  Capture your memories
Probably you have many materials from your internship. Try to collect
them all and have a book dedicated to your ‘explore’ where you will
keep everything related to your trip.
 Take up a hobby
Start doing things instead of staying at home and feeling depressed.
Have a hobby which is always helpful. Take up a sport or start drawing
– it doesn’t matter what it will be as long as you are kept busy and you
are enjoying yourself.
 Take a language course
Surely during your internship many times you wished to know more
languages. So why not do it? Start learning a new language while
learning a new culture at the same time.
 Talk for your experience with others travelers
Join a blog or a forum for travelling and share your experience. You
will help other people who are interested in going to this country and at
the same time you will have the chance to talk once more about your
experience.

10.  Accept the fact that you are home and be grateful for it
Enjoy time with your family and friends, catch up and keep all the
memories as a dream came true.
 Plan your next trip
When you got back you couldn’t wait to leave again. So plan your next
trip now that you feel the international spirit.

11. AIESEC OPPORTUNITIES
You just got back from you trip and you have so many new experiences
to share and so many memories that you will hold on for your entire
life. Some of you may feel that this is not enough, that their traveling
desire is so high that are willing to go for another exchange with
AIESEC. Some think that they should offer this amazing experience to
other people and would like to become a member in this organization.
Some may think that their involvement with AIESEC has come to an
end. Whichever category you are in to, we would like to present you all
the programs we have in AIESEC and what each offers.

12. Team member program
The Team Member Program is one of the most important means
throughwhich AIESEC provides its members the opportunity to
choose their path to leadership. This stage offers access to a global
youthnetwork and an opportunity toexperience working within a
team through an interactive learning environment
Benefits
 Theoretical and practical knowledge
 Personal and professional development
 Free access to trainings and preparation seminars
 Opportunity to attend national and international conferences
 Networking with national and international companies’
representatives
Team leader program
Team Leader Program will provide you with personal and
professional development through team building and team
management. The participants will gain experience in leading
other members or teams and guiding them on their work, thus
becoming an essential part of their development.

13. Benefits for you:
 Theoretical and practical knowledge
 Personal and professional development
 Free access to trainings and preparation seminars
 Opportunity to attend national and international conferences
 Networking with national and international companies’
representatives
Global Community Development Program
Global Community Development Program provides you with an
opportunity to volunteer abroad and work on projects
concerning any of the current issues, such as HIV/AIDS
awareness, cultural education or environmental responsibility.
You will be offered an opportunity to develop your personal skills
and competencies through multiculturalism and social
responsibility.
Benefits for you:
 International work experience
 Being involved with different issues of social concern
 New multicultural perspectives
 Network of people from all around the world
 Free access to different trainings and preparation seminars

14. Global Internship Program
Global Internship Program offers international internships and
aims contributing to your professional development by helping
you to gain experience in a particular field of work. The
internships are normally conducted over a longer period of time
and might vary from working for a small start-up company to
working for a large multinational firm.
Benefits for you:
 International work experience
 New professional network with people from all around the world
 Exposure to working in a multi-cultural environment
 Professional and personal development
Besides these programs, you can always participate in the
organization an share your experience either in our information
meetings or in classrooms. It will be helpful to have people who
have lived this experience talking and motivate others to live it
too.

15. If any of these programs caught your interest and you would still like to
continue being involved with AIESEC, please do not hesitate to get in
touch with us:
LCVP oGCDP name:
LCVP oGCDP email:
We would also like to remind you that it is important both for us
and for you too to fill our NPS (Net Promoters Score) survey in
order to evaluate your experience better. You can choose a number
or write a comment on all the services provided to you so as for us
to know what we did wrong and what needs improvement. This
survey is truly significant because we aim to offer the most
qualitative experiences and we cannot do that without fixing our
mistakes!

16. We will wait for you all to our bringimpACT seminar in order to discuss
all this in person and meet each other better.
Date:
Place:
Time:
We really hope this booklet was helpful and offered you some ideas on how to
deal with what you are facing right now. Whatever your AIESEC journey will be
from now on feel free to keep contact with us and we will always want to hear
about your experience.
‘The world is a book, and those who do not travel only read a page.’