There is no amount of TikToks, YouTube videos, or advice from friends and family, as you prepare to go abroad, that prevent you from getting your phone pickpocketed. At least for me. It happened fast. Or maybe it didn’t, I don’t really know. What I do know is I got on the tram with my phone, and when I got off I didn’t have my phone anymore. Great.
But this isn’t the end. Though today it feels like we need our phones for everything: taking pictures, calling our loved ones in the States, authenticating our GW account so we can respond to important emails, losing your phone is certainly not the end of the world. For the first few days it was hard to adjust. If I needed to get somewhere, I had to figure it out in other ways. I couldn’t join any WhatsApp chats for any groups at my host school. Things I had previously been used to doing fast, I just couldn’t do as quick anymore. But in the end I survived, and thought to share some of the more important things I did that helped me recover (and helped me from totally freaking out):
1. Lock your phone.
I can only speak for iPhone, but the process is simple. Go on whatever phone locator app you have (for me it was Find My) and lock your phone. If you know it is truly gone forever, visit your carrier’s website to suspend your phone service and render it useless to whoever may have took it. Most everything can luckily be done on a laptop. So, find a café or a hotel lobby with wifi (thank you, @Sheraton), get a bite to eat or whatever you need to chill out as you move to tip 2:
2. Tell everyone.
At the very beginning, especially if you’re living alone in a foreign country, it can feel incredibly scary being so isolated. You will be fine. Call a friend (thank you, Joey). Email your parents. Tell all of your new friends you’ve known for maybe a week (and laugh). Tell the lady working at the Apple Store. Tell your landlord.
Telling as many people about what happened can make the problem feel less drastic. People are also surprisingly understanding. Because we all have phones today, almost everyone can understand how heart stopping the thought of losing a phone might be. Many also might end up having some life-saving, survival skills you could pick up during the next weeks or months you might go without your missing device.
3. Give yourself grace.
There are probably so many things you could have done differently to prevent however it happened from happening. Don’t worry about those. There isn’t anything you can do to change that you lost your phone. You just have to move on.
Something that helped me move on was practicing gratitude. It sounds silly, but after I realized my phone was never coming back to me, I felt relieved that at least my wallet and passport weren’t stolen. I was still alive. I could still navigate the city. Eventually, I would have a new phone and this blip would be another funny story to tell my friends about my study abroad experience. Remember you are experiencing everything for the first time anyway, only now you get to truly take everything in and appreciate the experiences ahead of you with a forced digital detox. You didn’t come abroad to be a screenager!
By following these suggestions, though you might not have your phone back, hopefully you might have a little more confidence moving forward. It’s not every day you get your phone stolen, but it’s also not every day that you find yourself studying abroad. Keep an open mind, and remember you got this!
Jack Couser
GW Exchange - Bocconi University
Spring 2024
School of Business
Marketing Major