A lot of study abroad programs, study abroad advisers and professors harp on the potential benefits of doing a home stay in a foreign country because doing a home stay would help you understand the culture as well as help you improve your language skills much faster. While I don't argue with that statement, I will say that it robs you of everything else that you could possibly experience in another nation ( I mean good things of course! ), the most important of all the things that a home stay takes away from you is your independence.
Studying abroad in another country should teach you independence, it should teach you how to be adaptable and flexible, it should teach you to understand cultural differences, and it should help you improve your foreign language skills. Now, I think that doing a home stay would accomplish three of the four things but living in a dorm helps me accomplish all four things and it makes attending class much more convenient. My experience living in a dormitory here in National Chengchi University teaches me all of the following things and more. I have learned so much about the Taiwanese culture and experienced genuine independence. Living in a dorm, I get to set my own study schedule and my own schedule in regards to when I will come home. I may have had that independence even at Trinity but the lack of transportation hindered it quite a bit.
Here, the lack of a car does not prevent me from going where I want to go and seeing the places I want to see. I have the MRT, buses, taxis, long-distances buses, and the train at my disposal and I don't even pay that much for transportation here compared to what I have to pay for a car back in the states. When I look at it, the transportation system here just makes me more independent as I am free to use it to travel anywhere!
But what is it about this home stay that is such an unattractive prospect? Well, just like living in the same roof as your family, there are "rules". Rules that stipulate exactly at what time you should return home, perhaps how often you can go out with your friends, how much time you can spend navigating the internet, and maybe (if your host family is really that anal) curfew. Some host families may be more lax but they do tend to worry about you, if you spend most of your time outside of the home anyways. They still need to keep track of your whereabouts so that your family back at home is not worrying sick about you! Nevertheless, I would mind a group of people constantly checking up on me when I am trying to enjoy a journey that is emotionally fulfilling, a life changing experience, and an experience that is supposed to help me grow as a person. I have a need to be independent and without independence, I cannot learn. I cannot learn because being under somebody's thumb does not allow me to make my own mistakes and learn from them. It does not allow me to see the benefits and drawbacks of my decisions because most of the time my host family will be lecturing me on do's and dont's and what not.
Lastly, the biggest reason I mind staying with a host family is that it makes things really hard when you're trying to go out with friends and have fun. As I mentioned in the last paragraph about "rules", you tend to want to stay out as late as possible and enjoy your time on the weekends. That's not possible with a host family constantly worrying about you.
Conclusion
I don't think any of the above reasons should prevent you from doing a homestay if that is what you want to do. If you are okay with giving up some space and privacy to experience another family life, I admire you for doing something I am in capable of doing. However, when I evaluated what I wanted out of my experience, I prioritize independence on top of my list of things I want to learn when I study abroad. That could be difficult with a homestay where you are obligated to follow "rules" set by your family.
No comments:
Post a Comment