
Heading 1
"So, here you are. Too foreign for home,
too foreign for here. Never enough for both."
Ijeoma Umebinyuo
Experiencing expatriation
​
Emotional distress you can experience as expatriate may result from many challenges you are confronted with in the new country regarding the professional / educational / familial setting.
-
COMMON PERSONAL CHALLENGES FOR EXPATS
​
-
Language barriers
-
Dealing with culture shock
-
Dealing with relocation anxiety
-
Living away from family, partner or friends
-
Dealing with long periods of separation from the loved ones
-
Repeated goodbye (international friends leaving)
-
Feeling of isolation
-
Adjusting to a new environment
-
Building up a new social network (cultural diversity)
-
Feeling the needs to succeed and to avoid the possibility of expatriation failure
-
Dealing with unresolved matters from the past
​
2. COMMON CHALLENGES FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS
​
Personal challenges
-
Learning to be independent without family and friend direct support
-
Dealing with limited economic resources or short time financing
-
Dealing with uncertainty or concerns about the future
Academic challenges
-
Managing time
-
Doubts during the studies / writing of thesis
-
Dysfunctional relationship with a professor / colleague / supervisor
-
Lacking of support
-
Finding a new balance between work and leisure
-
Feeling under pressure and experiencing negative stress around the deadlines
-
Keeping up a high level of motivation over the long run
-
Feeling pressure and stress around the deadlines
-
Keeping up a high level of motivation over the long run
-
Dealing with a competitive atmosphere
-
Dealing with own expectations, those of the professors / supervisors, and those of families
-
Dealing with the impostor syndrome
-
Dealing with perfectionism / procrastination
​
3. COMMON CHALLENGES FOR NEW MOTHERS
​
-
Dealing with your new identity: becoming a mother
-
The feeling of not being a ‘good enough’ mother
-
Dealing with a hard-working or travelling partner
-
Lacking of family support and/or no network support (yet).
-
Lacking of medical / psychological support in your mother-tongue
-
Navigating an unfamiliar health care system
-
Having less time or energy to adjust in a new environment
-
Exhaustion
​
​ 4. COMMON CHALLENGES FOR FAMILIES
​​
-
Having gave up a job to follow the partner and feeling lost of not having anymore a professional identity
-
Experiencing imbalances due to (lack of) dual career
-
Working conditions can be difficult
-
Dealing with a hard-working or travelling partner
-
Dealing with past / present couple issues
-
Changing family routines
-
Having to adapt to new codes of conduct, educational and social norms adjustment in a new environment of the entire family system (with different challenges for each member).
-
Dealing with daily family stress factors: for example, family planning and transport
-
Having concerns about children adjustment: children attending a new school, children with special needs / gifted children
-
Being / feeling unfamiliar with the schooling system of your expat child
-
Managing new experiences
-
Parental burnout
​
​