Maggie Burr is a DPhil candidate in Classical Archaeology at Oxford, where she spends her time trying to understand what ancient farmers did, and why. She grew up in Lexington, MA, Austin, TX, and Beverly, MA. 

Me and a large inscription at Ostia Antica, Italy, 2011

Rasinari, Transylvania (Romania)

What motivated your decision to go abroad? How/why did you choose where to go?
I've been going abroad since I was 16 – partly, I guess, because I love experiencing new places and new cultures, and mainly because, as an archaeologist, my work is mainly centred in Europe. 

In high school, I spent a month in Italy – my first time going to Europe. In college, I spent a semester in Prague. 

In my master’s program, I worked in Romania, Italy, and Greece during the summers. I’m married to a man who is from the Netherlands, and I spend a couple months every year living with his family there – a different kind of study abroad experience! 

And, for the past four years, I've been studying full-time in the UK - with a 10 month stint in Greece in the middle of that, because I'm working on a PhD in Roman Archaeology. And my reason for going abroad this time was very simple: I wanted to work with my supervisor, who runs the Oxford Roman Economy Project (OXREP) at Oxford - he was there, and if I wanted to learn how to work on the Roman Economy with his help, I'd have to go too! 

Roman Dorchester dig, in Dorchester-on-Thames, UK, this year

Sighisoara, Transylvania (Romania) - among other things, birthplace of Vlad the Impaler.

What was your experience like? What is your favorite memory? What were some challenges you observed?
There are too many amazing choices, I don't know how to pick just one! 

Imagine standing in a meadow that, according to archaeologists, has never - in all of human history, never - been ploughed, within view of a cathedral that was built (in its most recent form) under the direction of Henry the VIII, watching cows grazing in the near-distance as you watch the mist rise off the Thames. The first morning I experienced this, I was too stunned to speak. 

So many things in England stunned me with their beauty, and I never actually got used to it. I just got used to stopping, staring, and trying to steady my racing heart. 

•    The man who played accordion music on a main shopping street, and the couples who waltzed to the tune. 
•    The clock tower at my college that still tolls 101 times per night, in honour of the first 101 scholars that studied there, back in 1546. 
•    Wearing an academic robe to "high table" dinners (think of Harry Potter) with brilliant, hilarious older scholars - and then sharing port and snuff! (well, I never tried snuff) with them in ancient wood panelled rooms long into the night. 
•    Hiking in the muddy hills on a February morning, the grass all crunchy with the frost, some late roses blooming in the hedges, dogs chasing each other in the fields, Norman church towers glimmering creamy white in the distance. 
•    The crackle of a fire and the warmth of friends' laughter sharing a round at a pub on a chilly Sunday afternoon, nothing on the schedule but 'banter.' 

As for challenges: everything is challenging in the beginning! For me, the biggest thing might have been getting used to the physical differences in daily life (and how we perceive what ‘quality of life’ feels like) between the US and the UK. Adjusting to cultural differences is easy – even fun! – when you are well-rested and in a new place on vacation – but learning how to deal with daily life (and dealing with daily life!) – homework, laundry, taking metre readings – is hard when you are physically uncomfortable! 

What was uncomfortable – at first – about living in England? Many sinks (our bathroom sink, for instance) still have separate hot and cold taps – makes washing one’s face awkward. Our shower room was unheated. 30% of all the rental property in the UK has a mould problem – including every flat we’ve lived in. Oxford is in the midst of a housing crisis, and coming from the US, our flat seemed tiny – no closets that weren’t full of boilers/vacuums (no place to put luggage!). Our fridge (and most of the fridges in student accommodation in the city) was a mini student fridge – so we had to learn to change our normal way of cooking (cook huge things, freeze 3/4s, not have to cook every day). Finding solutions to these problems felt wonderful – but in the beginning it was quite a challenge.  

View of the courtyard from inside the Bodleian Library, Oxford

Myself and Bram inside a house at Horraon, in Epirus, Greece 2013

What skills did you develop from your experience? Do you feel changed from your experience abroad? 
Study abroad – at least for me! – is like what I think being a toddler must feel like: you learn something new about yourself, or the new place, or your new friends/language/culture, every few hours. You are always learning, adapting, growing, changing. So, it’s hard to answer this question. 

But maybe it’s possible to boil some of the changes down into broad themes. 

One is that, for me, moving abroad has given me a host of both practical and emotional skills, and seeing myself change and grow has made me much more confident in my ability to handle life’s challenges. 

It also taught me the number one lesson EVERYONE learns when they study abroad, which is how much culture impacts a person’s identity and their modes of self-expression. This is something we all know intellectually – and something that people in cross-cultural families/relationships probably know without moving abroad. But for me, studying abroad was the first time I began to get what it meant. 

I have a bad analogy to offer: Every time I’ve ever tried to learn any words in a new language, there have been sounds I haven’t been able to pronounce properly. In Dutch, it’s the ui (sounds sort of like the ou in ouch, but different). These sounds are so foreign to us that it takes practice to even HEAR them when other people pronounce them correctly. 

This is how I think about cross-cultural communication: at first, it can be easy to not even HEAR/SEE what is being communicated, when something is being communicated in a way that is different from how it is communicated in one’s home culture. Another bad analogy: we’ve all heard someone described as a person who “says what they mean, and means what they say,” but until moving, I didn’t realise the extent to which ‘saying what you mean’ might look different in other countries. In your own country, where you know the social cues, it’s easy (or at least, it’s easy to THINK it’s easy?) to say what you mean – and to understand what other people mean. When I first moved to the UK, I thought everyone was so polite – but also cold. The big shows of emotion I am used to from living in the US – I LOVE YOUR SHOES! Oh I am SO ANGRY – that !$% just cut me off! – were nowhere to be found. It took me a couple of months to begin to understand what frustration, anger, happiness, pride, love and affection looked like, in English-English. 

It took learning to listen and look at people differently, to give them and myself the time to adjust to a different way of communicating. Understanding that what I think people mean could be vastly different from what they actually mean – and vice versa! – has changed the way I see EVERYTHING. 

me taking a nap at the dig site at Racosul de Jos (Transylvania, Romania), 2010

me and my backpack, Sighisoara, 2010

Has your experience helped you get to where you are today?
Well, I’m still effectively having the experience, so it is still getting me where I am today. But I can say even now that it has definitely already given me so many of the things I wanted from life. 

I grew up just desperate to experience the world. I wanted nothing more – and nothing less – than to be able to wake up at dawn and wander through cobbled streets to a piazza, breathing in the warm Tuscan air – to wander with the sheep across a Transylvanian meadow, to know what grilled octopus, fresh from the boat, and eaten with tzatziki and resin-infused wine, would taste like on a hot summer night with the Aegean lapping at a dock a few feet away. 

Before I went abroad, I thought about these things in the back of my mind so much – wanted to see and feel them so badly – but I felt they were out of reach, that I could never afford to travel and would never have the time. 

I’ve learned that it actually takes very little money – and relatively little time – to achieve the dreams I have, and I’ve found that chasing them has quieted my spirit considerably!

me wearing train conductor's hat on the P train from Brasov to Racosul de Jos, Translyvania

me + the beach at Pacheia Ammos, Crete, 2010

What advice would you share with other students who are thinking of going abroad? 
The first thing I will say is that if you are considering going abroad, stop considering it. Do it. Make it happen. Do whatever you have to do – work an extra job, take time off of school, take out a loan, and save every penny you have. 

I also suggest trying to find a program that makes it easy to integrate into the local community. It can be hard to make local friends when you are a foreign student, especially because people will know from the outset that you are only there temporarily. Joining sports teams, art classes, choir groups, hiking groups, and things like that can help get you out into the community. 

Another thing: everyone is different, but I personally have never travelled without experiencing culture shock in the beginning. It’s not a bad thing – in fact, I think it can be a good thing – but it’s good to know that it’s coming, so that you don’t freak yourself out when you first get someplace new. I now expect to go through an adjustment period, both when I arrive someplace new, and when I return home to the States – and I have learned how to take steps to make it easier to adjust. 

And then, when you are there – adapt! If you go in knowing that you won’t fit in right away, and expecting to have to learn some new communication skills, you’ll adapt faster. And then for some nitty gritty details: if you are going to Europe, bring layers. I thought I knew what this meant before moving to England, and boy was I wrong. In the winter, a big coat won’t cut it: it's bone-chillingly cold (the kind that goes straight through the warmest down jacket) for a few hours, then the sun comes out and you fry. Wear a tank top/t-shirt, a long-sleeved shirt, a wool sweater or two, and a jacket. Bring a hat and a scarf. Wear strong, sturdy shoes that won't trip you up on cobblestones or break down in the rain (look up brogues, or get nice-looking hiking boots from Timberland or LL Bean. Wear leather - people have worn it for centuries because it holds up. And looks good, too.). Bring voltage converters, plastic baggies, and your favourite pillow. Watch local TV, even if you can't understand the language. Carry small change and pay with small bills. 

Observe the people around you, and do what they do (within reason)! (i.e., if they are whispering on the train, you should whisper too). 

Buy maps and use them. 

Drink enough water. 

Do things – go hiking, take a swim, do whatever it is that you’ve been dreaming of all this time! 

Me inside the ruins of Zaraka Monastery, near Stymphalia, Greece, 2013

Bram, myself and several members of the Latium Vetus programme (run by Tufts University and Universita Roma Tor Vergata), eating dinner somewhere near the Campo de'Fiori, Rome, 2011

How has international education impacted or influenced your cultural identity? 
Every time you move abroad, you develop a new ‘you’ that can operate in the new culture – I now have a Dutch compartment that enjoys frikandlen (hot dogs) and kroketten (fried balls of gravy – sounds bad but tastes amazing), dinners under the stars all bundled up in winter clothing (in August!), and having afternoon-long political discussions with people I just met.

 
me, last summer (2015) dressed up as a knight at the ARCHAEON, in Alphen-aan-de-Rijn, Netherlands

I have a Greek compartment that expects to smell orange blossoms in the darkest midwinter and to be on a first-name basis with all the store clerks, bus drivers, and gym attendants in my neighbourhood. 

Regular and associate members of the American School of Classical Studies, Athens, at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, 2013

I have an English compartment that yearns to spend Sundays ‘walking’ in the countryside, that expects affection to come in the form of a disturbingly accurate insult, and that can while away entire days sitting with friends discussing everything – and nothing at all. It’s strange – because this doesn’t take away your American-ness – it just adds another layer. It’s fun! 

Me and Bram on the lowest peak of Loughrigg Fell, Ambleside, Lake District, UK, this summer.

#StudyAbroadBecause... It Changes The Way You See Everything

Excavation team getting ready to make our first hike up to Piatra Detunata, near Racosul de Jos, Transylvania (Romania), 2010

Me and Bram in Sighisoara

All photos courtesy and copyright Maggie Burr