CULTURE SHOCK AND INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS' ADJUSTMENT TO NEW CULTURAL ENVIRONMENTS Prakash Upadhyay, PhD Associate Professor of Anthropology Tribhuvan University, Prithvi Narayan Campus, Pokhara, Nepal ABSTRACT Ethos shock or culture shock comprising its variety of symptoms and outcomes is a completely normal physical and psychological reaction to foreign environments and a part of a successful adaptation process--the best and maybe even the only means to experience and understand foreign cultures. This article argues that the anxiety and stress related to the adaptation process are shocking but the extent of adjustment does not depend on whether the negative symptoms of culture shock are experienced, but how they are coped with. Adaptation in hosts cultures can be made through different learning processes rather than single learning process that can have positive outcomes in the end, by serving as a hint that something is not right and therefore motivating thinking about how to adjust that can help reduce ethnocentrism and increase acceptance of cultural diversity and appreciation of cultural integrity relating to the challenges of an unfamiliar environment. It is important for spoon-fed theoretically nurtured Nepalese students to grow through this discomfort in order to understand them better and to gain new sensitivities that encourages personal and intercultural competency developments, positive learning experiences leading to increased self-awareness and personal growth in a comparatively developed pragmatic host culture. Keywords: Acculturation, Culture shock, Ethnocentrism, Homesickness, Sojourner Introduction At a time when the Nepalese government is screening the dream of prosperity to its people, the number of Nepali students travelling for higher education in foreign countries has increased considerably. Nepal Mountain News (2018) notifies that Nepali students have now reached as many as 72 countries and in the year 2018 only, over 60,000 students went abroad for higher study. In an increasingly globalizing world, production of skilled, capable and talented citizen is the modern goal of international students studying abroad which proffer opportunities for personal enrichment, travel, greater chance of graduate school acceptance, job market advantage, and increased awareness of global issues and cultural differences. Study abroad has both merits and demerits. Embedded with study abroad, culture shock is regarded as a common phenomenon among migrant population which is the special disorientation a person may experience when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life in new country, a move between social environments, or simply travel to another type of life. It is the process of initial adjustment to an unfamiliar environment and the psychological construct of adjustment process in emotional, psychological, behavioural, cognitive and psychological aspects. It is that shock or a condition or time of a person in host culture where he/she is searching his or her possessions left in culture of origin e.g. searching same foods, same families, same friends and the same environment. Culture shock was first named by Kalervo Oberg in 1960 who termed it as an occupational disease or ailment, as intercultural adjustment precipitated by the anxiety that results from losing all our familiar signs and symbols of social intercourse in a non-specific state of uncertainty where the individuals are not certain what is expected of them or what they can expect from the person around them. For Ward et al. (2001) culture shock is the adjustment process of stressful life event that requires a variety of affective, behavioural, and cognitive responses to new environment. Paul (1995) argues that culture shock applies to any situation where an individual is force to adjust to an unfamiliar social system where previous learning process no longer applies. Guanipa (1998) describes culture shock with a list of negative symptoms and the various stages one may go through when experiencing culture shock. The prevalent problems of culture shock consist of: language barriers, technology gap, acculturation problem, information overload, generation gap, skill-interdependence, formulation of dependency, regress/homesickness, frustrations, alienation and isolation, boredom, responsibility etc. Other symptoms include loneliness, irritability, depression and rigidity. Culture shock results in unexpected and upsetting impression on the mind or feeling, 1