Allaika Yasmin Affendi, Eka Perwitasari Fauzi
Universitas Mercu Buana, Indonesia
Indonesia’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology created a program called Pertukaran Mahasiswa Merdeka (PMM), which allows students to take courses outside their study program and campus for one semester. The exchange process then brings together students from various cultural backgrounds, creating cross-cultural interactions. Interestingly, even though there are cultural differences, fantasy themes can be formed, becoming a common understanding among the students involved. This research uses a qualitative approach with Symbolic Convergence Theory, which is analyzed using the Fantasy Theme Analysis method. Direct observations were carried out on the second batch student community of the Pertukaran Mahasiswa Merdeka program at the Universitas Sumatera Utara (USU) and continued with an in-depth interview process with 13 community members. The result is that six fantasy themes and their symbolic cues are formed in phases of culture shock. One of the fantasy themes succeeded in forming a rhetorical vision of the Nusantara Module activities in the recovery phase.