A student shares experiences of her semester-long Tibetan-studies program in India, Nepal, and Tibet. Informed by both home university and program provider that by going abroad and immersing herself in a foreign culture, she would become a "global citizen," she was encouraged to "act like the locals," "be a resident," and "become a member" of my host community. However, once overseas, she realized that studying abroad as an American student is far more complicated than simply learning how others speak and eat. International education entails navigating the social, historical, and political realities of what it means to be American and that, although the world may be increasingly interconnected, global systems of inequality, power, privilege, and difference remain. Finding that other study-abroad students have expressed similar conclusions, the writer advocates that higher-education institutions be encouraged to integrate these experiences about American students who study abroad into the international education they provide.