Returned Students

• Returning from abroad and adjusting back to life at your home and CMC can be challenging. Our CGE staff wants to help our students reconnect with each other and feel comfortable being back on campus after their program ends.
• "Re-entry to the US, and college, comes with its own set of hurdles, one being reverse culture shock, which the US Department of State describes as “the psychological, emotional and cultural aspects of re-entry." [1] While reacclimating, it is natural to have feelings of boredom, loss, alienation, and difficulty relaying your study abroad experiences and memories. [2] When confronting this reverse culture shock, students are encouraged to share their experiences and acknowledge the self-growth made over this time, as they may view their home lives differently after time away. 
• We facilitate this by hosting a welcome-back dinner for our newly returned cohort of students. The occasion brings together students returning from all over the world, allowing everyone to discuss their time away from the campus. The dinner also allows students to process the experiences of studying abroad and re-entry into their homes and on campus. Every study abroad experience is different and will impact each student differently. Our dinner provides the opportunity for each student to recount their experience and build support to readjust back to CMC together as a community.

1. ^ “Reverse Culture Shock,” US Department of State, https://2009-2017.state.gov/m/fsi/tc/c56075.htm
2. ^ “Stages of Transition & 10 Re-Entry Challenges,” IES Abroad, https://www.iesabroad.org/returning-home 

• The best source of feedback on our approved programs comes from our returned students. Through program evaluation forms and/or individual meetings, students can relay experiences to us regarding the program overall, individual courses, the host institution, and/or other things that made the experience memorable. This input provides specific insight through direct experience as a student that helps the Center for Global Education make informed decisions and assessments about programs. 
• Students, please take the time to complete the evaluation form thoroughly and honestly to provide the best information for us and to help us advise your peers. We take the time to review the feedback you share in an effort to ensure our programs support our students as CMC would.

Upon returning from study abroad, we host a semesterly contest for students to submit their photos to our Study Abroad Photo Contest. You will be automatically added as an uploader to our shared online folder where you can upload photos that you think capture your experience and life abroad. In the process, we will require you to sign and upload our photo release form. We ask that you caption the photos so we have the context of the picture, and to only upload photos you would feel comfortable seeing on a flyer around campus. Don’t hesitate to contact us at [email protected] for questions.

Applicants with study abroad experience are highly desired by employers, regardless of specific sector and industry. There are transferable skills that you gain through the experience. Before you complete your resume or cover letter, you should brainstorm and reflect on studying abroad. Ask yourself questions about your time abroad:

• How have you grown as an individual? Both while abroad and as a returnee. 
• Did you improve upon your language skills?
• What connections did you make while abroad?
• How did you act during stressful situations?
• Did you take any relevant courses for your future career?

The questions help reveal skills and attributes that you gained or refined while studying abroad. Once you have reflected on your answers, you can think about how they would relate to an employer and industry. You navigated new experiences and the host country’s politics, economy, and values, which would prove adaptability, flexibility, and cultural awareness. These are skills to highlight on your resume and in interviews. If you took courses relevant to the position or industry, you can list them and highlight learning about the topics in a different country to gain a view through different cultural lenses. 

It has been found that the transferable skills learned on study abroad helped students better suit job postings and have a positive impact on their employability post-graduation. However, you must communicate and connect these to the position. It would be key to research the position summary and the industry in order to best showcase how your skills and learned traits will help support the opportunity. 

Below are lists of both key attributes and skills that you can highlight based on your time abroad:

Attributes¹

Depending on your time abroad, you may format your resume in different ways. The most common way to include study abroad is in the example below, under the education section. You would list it after your formal degree at Claremont McKenna, with the specific semester you studied abroad. The example below highlights some of the information that a student would want to share depending on the job description: demonstrating proficiency in Spanish, not majoring or minoring in the language, and relevant coursework that the employer might be interested in. While these demonstrate value, it is your job to discuss why you are a strong candidate and to showcase the relevance of your study abroad to your potential employer. 

If you participated in an internship or volunteered while abroad, then this might be highlighted under your experience section. As with any other experience on your resume, you will want to highlight result-based bullet points that you participated in. Similar to the rest of your resume, you want to ensure that this will be fit for the job you are applying to.

Cover Letter

A cover letter provides an opportunity to detail the specific information about your experience and education and how it relates to the job posting. Since each cover letter is curated for the position, you can take the time to detail your experience in relation to what the employer is looking for. 

For example, if you studied a foreign language or gained greater proficiency, you can detail how living in another country strengthened your communication skills and cultural awareness. If you volunteered or interned abroad, you can discuss how the experience cultivated skills such as research, in-depth analysis, problem-solving, and trend forecasting, and how an international environment enhanced those abilities.

In addition to technical skills, studying abroad fosters valuable soft skills that employers consistently seek: adaptability, resilience, patience, and cross-cultural collaboration. By including brief anecdotes from your experiences abroad, you can demonstrate these qualities in action and show employers how you navigated unfamiliar environments, overcame challenges, and grew both personally and professionally. These examples make your cover letter more engaging and help employers understand the unique value you can bring to their organization.   

Below are three examples of different cover letter excerpts incorporating study abroad. Each does so in a different way, through technical language skills, relevant courses, and the soft skills developed through different culture and societal norms.

In January 2013, I took advantage of the opportunity to spend my winter break pursuing my dream of going to Latin America and spent three weeks living with a family in Costa Rica. While there I took a class on Human Rights, despite it being seemingly unrelated to my International Business major. However, after learning about Latin American labor rights and seeing the impacts of large international businesses on local economies through my host family’s eyes, I was inspired to alter my course of study to focus on international business ethics. I plan to pursue this topic further, and your department’s program in international business law would provide me with the knowledge and skills needed to effect meaningful change in this arena.

While my language skills began developing with my undergraduate French studies, my translation abilities were particularly enhanced through spending 11 weeks in Paris last summer. While there I took part in an intensive French curriculum with a heavy emphasis on phonetics. These classes, combined with my experience living with a French host family who spoke no English and enjoyed discussing politics over dinner, ensured my proficiency in conveying complex information and ideas such as those which could be expected in this position.²

In the spring of last year, I studied abroad in St. Petersburg, Russia. During this time, I took classes on art, history, culture, and Russian language, however the real education I received was outside of the classroom. Spending an extended period in a culture so different from my own provided me with an invaluable course on myself, my own culture, and how to communicate within, through, and outside of that cultural context. This change in perspective was the push I needed to be able to honestly evaluate the news media in the US and in other countries, and to explore how perspective plays a vital role in how news is portrayed throughout the world. I am eager to put this new perspective, as well as my awareness of media bias and personal commitment to neutrality, to use for your newspaper.²

1. ^ “Developing a Globally Competitive Workforce Through Study Abroad: The Value of Study Abroad Skills in the U.S. Job Market,” Emsi & NAFSA, September 2020, Developing a Globally Competitive Workforce Through Study Abroad.
2. ^ “Marketing your AIFS Experience Professionally,” AIFS, https://assets.aifsabroad.com/images/v1659032819/PDF/professional-marketing-resource/professional-marketing-resource.pdf?_i=AA