In the midst of the rush of returning students, The Thrill brings you Thea Kohout’s ’14 experience of getting thrown back into the Kenyon bubble.
Before I left my program in Cape Town, our program directors sat down with us and talked with us about the phenomenon of reverse culture shock, or the feeling of returning to your home culture after having become accustomed to a different one and experiencing culture shock all over again because of it. I didn’t put too much stock in this thing, though – I was excited to be coming home because I missed my family and Kenyon and my cats and American ketchup and Netflix—and I definitely should have. Because being back at Kenyon after my semester in South Africa is the epitome of reverse culture shock.
I missed this place while I was away, there’s no doubt about that. But when you’re away from a place, the first things you forget about are the things that used to annoy you, and you start totally romanticizing everything. Here are some things I forgot about in the eight months since I’ve been here:
The Kenyon Thrill 