Briefings are offered each semester. Read a novel or see a film from the host culture. Read Bill Hoffa's on-line Study Abroad Handbook. This is a thorough guide to studying abroad. Sometimes it can be even more severe than your adjustment to your host culture.
Students often fail to prepare for their return home.
What is usually forgotten are the changes that you, the student has undergone as well as the changes that have occurred at home and on campus. Try to remember the skills that you used to adjust to your host culture and reapply them as you return home. Believe it or not, life has continued in your absence. Just as you have changed during your experience, so have things on the home front. Continue to write in your journal.