What is it like to study abroad? Report from a PhD student

What is it like to study abroad? Report from a PhD student

SOAN greatly encourages students to study abroad. Here is a report from Sociology PhD student Carol Petty about studying Turkish in Turkey: 

For the summer of 2014, The State Department awarded me a Critical Language Scholarship to study Turkish in Ankara, Turkey. There is a typical way I could tell you about my summer studying in Turkey: “I went to a different country; I learned so much; my experience there changed my life; I’ve brought back so much valuable information.” While all of these things are true, I’m guessing you’ve read them somewhere else before. I’d like to tell a more interesting account of my trip.

It’s about being a foreigner, or a yabancı, a word I learned early on and, even with rudimentary Turkish skills, could pick out of any fast-paced conversation.  In my case, being foreign did not mean being regarded with suspicion.  On the contrary, I and the group of twenty other American students were handled as guests and, perhaps, curiosities.  For me, given my attributes and the particular context of my travel, being foreign meant rarely being able to read the situation.

Not knowing what’s going on can elicit frustration, but, if you’re doing it right, it places you in a delightful state in which ambiguity is the norm – a researcher’s dream.  All kinds of things just don’t make sense. Don’t miss my meaning here. I’m not saying that things in Turkey don’t make sense; I’m saying that social life, in general, has a bizarre logic, and, in the confines of your homeland (or wherever things make sense) this logic is a given. Explanations are unnecessary.

So, from my 8-weeks studying Turkish, living with a Turkish family, and taking excursions to various historical sites, I made interesting contacts with other students; developed tangible language skills; and saw all kinds of beautiful and ugly things. But, as a sociologist and a researcher, it’s ambiguity that I’d like to bring home.