Post-Abroad Blues: What No One Tells You About Coming Home

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UCLA chapter and does not reflect the views of Her Campus.

When you’re getting ready to study abroad, everyone warns you about culture shock. They tell you how different life will be, how much you’ll grow, and how hard it might be to adjust at first. What no one tells you is that the harder adjustment comes later: when you return home.

Coming home from abroad is strange. You expect everything to feel familiar, but somehow it doesn’t. The buildings on campus are the same, your friends are still here and your favorite coffee shop still smells the same, but it feels like you’re walking through someone else’s life.

While you were away exploring new cities, meeting new people and finding a version of yourself that felt freer, life here kept going. Classes changed, friend groups shifted and people made new memories without you. You know that’s how it works, but it hits differently when you actually come back and realize the world didn’t pause when you left. Every once in a while, you find yourself scrolling back through old posts from a time that felt bigger than life. Maybe it was a semester abroad, a summer away or just a different version of yourself. The memories make you smile, but they also make you ache a little.

You try to slip back into your old routines, but something feels slightly off. You’re back in the same classrooms and the same schedule, but your mindset is different now. You miss the little things you got used to abroad—hearing new accents, walking everywhere or taking spontaneous solo trips. You think about it every day, but you stop yourself from bringing it up too much because you don’t want to sound like that person who won’t stop talking about their time abroad.

It’s strange when something that meant so much to you feels almost impossible to explain. Your friends listen kindly, but they can’t fully understand how much it changed you or how deeply you miss it. It feels like a part of you is still somewhere else, living a different version of your life.

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”

Over time, you start finding small ways to reconnect with that part of yourself. You might explore your own city more, cook a favorite meal from your host country or plan your next trip even if it’s years away. You start to realize that you don’t have to leave again to keep that feeling alive. You just have to carry it with you.

Studying abroad changes you in ways you can’t put into words. Coming home reminds you not only of how much you grew, but also of how much there’s still left to see. Maybe that’s the secret no one tells you: coming home isn’t the end of your journey, but the beginning of a new one.