Though over 2,100 students are set to study abroad with Boston University’s program this year, according to the BU International Programs’ website, some said adjusting to cultural differences can be a challenging experience – especially when it means adjusting to how often someone from one culture scrubs up per week.
Though hygiene differences between cultures have been exaggerated, they do exist, CAS freshman Julianne Richard said, who hopes to study in Ireland in the future.
‘I think [hygiene] would be a concern in some of the programs, like the South American countries, just because of radically different practices and perhaps water availability,’ Richard said. ‘But again, doing as the locals do is just a daily part of the studying abroad experience.’
CAS senior Leslie Del Angel, who studied abroad in France in last spring, said people often wear the same outfit two days in a row.
‘It’s normal to see someone wear the same outfit two or three days in a week,’ Del Angel said. ‘It’s perfectly normal, whereas if it happened here, you’d probably have to drop out of a class.
CAS sophomore Christina Lau said she has seen a similar trend in Italy.
‘One huge difference is that they reuse clothing two or three times a week and it’s not a big deal, like it would be in America,’ she said.
Though Del Angel, who had visited France three years before studying abroad in that country, said the idea of unshaven French women is outdated, there are some differences between French standards for personal hygiene and American standards.
‘They do tend to sometimes not be obsessed with putting deodorant on,’ she said. ‘But you see a lot worse. In rush hour three years ago on the metro home, you smell things that you would not normally smell.’
Most students who studied abroad said hthey were happy with their experience, and hygiene differences are minor.
‘It’s actually not different,’ Lau said.’ ‘In America, you hear that people don’t shower every day and it’s unhygienic, but that’s not actually true.’
Students even went so far to say they appreciated the differences they found abroad.
‘The U.S. is definitely a country that is overly clean,’ Del Angel said.