Cultural & Linguistic Immersion

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM YOUR STUDY ABROAD EXPERIENCE

PURPOSE

The primary purpose of Holy Cross study abroad programs in languages other than English is immersion. More than contact with a new environment or change of scene, immersion is a way to overcome your status as an outsider and experience a new culture from within.

IMMERSION

Immersion involves practices of engaging oneself deeply in unfamiliar circumstances to learn through means that accompany the intellect, such as experience, observation, empathy, reflection, improvisation, and imagination.

PRINCIPLES

Thus, as opportunities for immersion, our study abroad programs are founded on the following principles:

• Maximizing language use and study

• Maximizing cultural exposure and understanding of place

• Promoting reflective practice, during the experience and afterwards

• Exploring your own interests and passions in local environments

• Advancing and communicating your own curricular development

PLEDGE

To study abroad, you pledge to embrace all these principles and to abide by the policies we have set up to guide your immersion experience. 

PRACTICES 

To uphold your pledge, you should adhere to practices like the following:

• Avoid travel outside your host country.  Get to know your host city and region  first, then (if you are able) your host country. 

• Use the local language at all times and in all circumstances, unless you have no other option. This includes when you spend time (or text) with H.C. friends or in social situations that make you feel awkward or tongue-tied; also, consider setting your smartphones and computer systems to the local language and getting news and information from local sources.

• Actively seek ways to deepen your experience, such as exploring your environs, speaking to new people, joining groups or clubs with local members, establishing routines that include social interactions. Focus on the local tastes, sights, sounds (take your earbuds out when walking around!) and smells.

• Participate in as many cultural activities organized by the program as possible.

• Minimize social media contacts with friends back home.  

• Avoid socializing with groups of students who won’t speak the local language.