There are numerous benefits of gaining international research experience for (young) scientists. At least, that is what older scientists kept telling me when I was a PhD student. Now, exactly thirty months after I told my family that I would move to Geneva, which I subsequently did one week (!) later, I am (still) so glad that I went abroad as it turned out to be beneficial for me in so many ways.
To be more specific, there are some very pronounced benefits that make going abroad worthwhile, like being able to acquire new skills, expand one’s research network, and get exposed to different cultures. There are, however, also countless benefits that may be less pronounced but still very valuable, and I want to share to couple of those with you in this blog post.
Togetherness
When leaving work earlier this week, I said goodbye to my new office mate and headed towards the building’s exit. But somehow, I decided to turn around, go back to the office, and ask my colleague how long it has been since he last saw his family (in real life).
His answer did not surprise me but shocked me nonetheless.
It has been almost three years since he last saw them, and he currently does not foresee travelling home in the near future due to prevailing COVID-19-related measures in his home country.
Ouch, I immediately regretted the complaints I expressed in the last year about that I visited my wife in the Netherlands only four times between August 2020 and July 2021 (and that I spent over 30 days in quarantine). Well, it is not hard to conclude from the previous sentence that I still feel super sorry for myself, given that I specified the units of time here. But still, I realized that my situation was far better than his, and I cannot imagine how hard it has been for him in the past years.
Anyway, rather than going home and feeling sorry for him, I took off my coat and sat down to talk with my colleague about the experiences of loneliness we ‘gained’ in the past years. We also discussed other challenges associated with going abroad, which are typically shared between foreigners. In the end, we concluded that dealing with these challenges allows us to grow as individuals and that we should use the corresponding life experiences to better empathize with those around us.
Insecurities
I clearly remember my carefree life as a teenager under the warm and protective wings of my parents. Even more, I remember my struggles with taking responsibility for my life upon turning eighteen and moving out of my parent’s place. Oh boy, that was quite a struggle, and I would not blame my parents for disinheriting me if they would only know half of the things I messed up as a young adult.
When I reflect on the changes in my life back then, I always comfort myself with the thought that I could have messed up much more severely if I would have been exposed to more changes. Because to be honest, I really did not have to deal with too many of them, like changes in living environment, social contacts, education system, health care system, political system, and social securities.
In the past few years, however, I did have to deal with some of them, and I found out that they can be quite impactful. Taking health care as an example, I am glad that I did not need to use much of it during my time here in Switzerland (thus far), because the little experience I have with the Swiss health care system is not that positive. (Disclaimer: I am Dutch, and I prefer things to be cheap!) As a result, I set a high threshold for seeking medical advice, and with every symptom I noticed, I asked myself the question whether it was urgent or whether it could wait until moving back to the Netherlands in 2022.
So far, (I think) I am doing quite well.
Also, I hope that I did not ignore a symptom of a potentially serious condition.
Barriers
Quite often I feel stupid, but not often so stupid as when I arrived in Geneva.
{dramatic pause, needed for those who did not know yet what kind of loser I am}
I arrived in Geneva thinking that everyone in Switzerland would speak both French and German (and a little bit of Italian), and I was really looking forward to improving my German. Also, I thought that most people would be able to speak English in Geneva, but that thought turned out to be as stupid as thinking that people would speak German here.
{dramatic pause, needed to let the information from the last sentence sink in}
Thus, I needed to work on my French skills, which I, admittedly, was not really looking forward to. But come on Frankie, you finished your French reading classes at high school with a 10 (out of 10), so you can do this!
In the following years, I found out that there is a difference between “I can do it” and “I want to do it”, which I should have been aware of for a long time. Because when I think back on my international colleagues in the Netherlands, hardly any of them managed to learn Dutch during their four-year PhD projects due to various reasons. Firstly, the main language spoken in most research groups is English. Secondly, (nearly) all foreign students complained about how hard it is to integrate in Dutch groups hence they became part of expat communities. And thirdly, too many of them mentioned that they sometimes felt like they were getting stonewalled, which often took away their will to speak Dutch.
Back then, I could accept the first reason, yet I did not want to believe that the last two reasons were valid. Today, I still acknowledge the first reason, and I want to apologize for any conversation in which I may have stated that the latter two reasons could not possibly be true.
What changed? Well, I moved to Geneva, and I experienced those exact same things.
(At last, I do want to stand up for myself (a little) by stating that I learned enough French to handle all administrative matters myself, to have daily conversations with colleagues who do not speak English, and to inform other road users about what I think of their driving skills. Still, I believe that the linguistic progress I have made in the past thirty months is a tiny fraction of what I could have achieved if German would have been the main language in Geneva.)
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