Culture Shock

My first experience in United States started with a disappointment. I had made many expectations, such as I will make many friends, the same way as I had in my country, but all my expectations fled in vain. On the first day of school, I expected to make new friends, but after completing my first day, I went into cultural shock. I figured out that the culture over here is completely different. Then, gradually, a number of problems arose, which made me more depressed and did not allow me to come out of culture shock and fulfill my expectations, and this forced me to seek company of people or foreigners that had a similar background. For me, the first stumbling block was language. When I started to attend classes and tried to communicate with my classmates, I couldn’t understand what they spoke. I had to ask them twice or sometimes a more number of times to repeat so that I could understand what that person is speaking; I found that natives spoke faster as compared to my country. Language is one of the ways to communicate with others, and communication can only happen when people can understand each other’s tone and intonation and when people are willing to talk with each other. When I first arrived at the United States, I saw that everything was totally different from my country. The second problem I faced in the United States was friendship because all of the people are busy doing their work. Americans make friends very easily and leave their friends as quickly, and I think this is true. In my country, friendship is a true and long lasting bonding. In India, people make friends easily and last long. Sometimes, friendships’ even lasts till death. For example, I have some friends from my primary school and I still have contacts’ with them. Here, in America, I have found that natives make friends from whom they get personal profit and then leave them. In America, the first thing a new international student has to learn is how to make new friend as soon as possible, because making friends is not so simple as people think. The first impression of natives will make most foreigners avoid them, and therefore foreigners wouldn’t find their true friendship. I don’t deny that natives aren’t helpful, but they aren’t that trustworthy as compared to friend in my country. At present, I have some natives’ friends but I can’t find the faith in them to share personal talks. College is a medium to sharpen your talents and specialize in own field. This path becomes very hard if one doesn’t have good friends and need to live on it’s own without any company. From my experiences, I can come to a conclusion that language, one of the stumbling blocks, can be over-come, but friendship is one thing that needs to be found as one may go under depression if he/she doesn’t find someone to talk with.