Coming Home: Life After Semester At Sea
What happens when the journey ends, the ship docks, and the place you’ve always called home suddenly feels unfamiliar? Coming Home: Life After Semester at Sea explores the often-overlooked experience of re-entry after study abroad. Through the stories of returned Semester at Sea participants, personal reflections, and perspectives informed by research and the authors’ expertise and re-entry experiences, Coming Home invites readers to recognize that the end of the voyage does not mean the end of the journey.
This e-book examines the emotional and practical realities of re-entry, including missing life abroad, changing relationships, identity shifts, and the challenge of translating a transformative experience into everyday life. It also explains why re-entry is more than “reverse culture shock” or returning to one’s life as it was before. Rather, coming home is an opportunity to integrate what was learned abroad into who we are becoming. It is about carrying forward the people, places, lessons, and perspectives of the voyage forward while allowing identity and future possibilities to continue evolving. This framing reflects contemporary perspectives on re-entry as an ongoing developmental process shaped by identity, context, support, and coping resources.
Although created with Semester at Sea voyagers in mind, Coming Home is for anyone who has ever returned home from an extraordinary experience and wondered, “What now?” It may be particularly useful to educators, counselors, or student affairs professionals seeking to understand and support the transition home after a significant international experience.
