Third culture kids and going to college/university

Third culture kids who go back to their home country to study in a college/university experience reverse culture shock. They try to fit in but often find it difficult to do so.  Fortunately, there is a now a guide for third culture kids who are going back to their home country to attend college/university.  The book is called, "The Global Nomad’s Guide to University Transition" by Tina Quick.

Tina Quick answered my questions about the book.

TQ:  The Global Nomad’s Guide to University Transition is the first book ever written for students who have been living outside their home countries but return for college/university and the parents that support them.

These students, known as third culture kids (TCKs) have the double whammy of not only having to make the adjustment to college life and all that entails as well as make a cultural transition. They are surprised to find that they do not know their home country as well as they think they do.

Examiner:  What inspired you to write about third culture kids going back to college/university?

TQ:  The impetus for writing this book came when my own family repatriated to the Boston area after having lived 15 years abroad. My children never attended school in the U.S. and one was about to head off to college and the other two were in high school and middle school. Repatriation is said to be just as, if not more difficult, than expatriating. One reason is that when people go abroad they expect things will be different and they will have to undergo an adjustment, but when they return home they expect everything to be the same and it isn’t. They go through reverse culture shock and a period of adjustment – something that comes as an unexpected surprise to them.

Being in the Boston area with all of its colleges and universities meant running into TCKs my family has known from our extensive overseas experience. I started conducting a little informal research with these TCKs and others I came to know through them. Their stories were all the same.  Less than a handful of TCKs I interviewed did not experience severe re-entry issues.  These included:

• Not fitting in or being able to relate to their home-country peers.
• Not knowing how to answer the “Where are you from?” question.
• Identity crises – because they had no ‘real’ national identity they struggled with their personal and cultural identity. As Pollock and Van Reken say in Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds, they didn’t know who they were or where they belonged.
• Many felt so alienated from their peers that they isolated themselves in order to avoid uncomfortable encounters with others. This often led to depression and in extreme cases, suicidal thinking.
• Most of them suffered through reverse culture shock without appreciating it for what it was – normal. The emotional highs and lows that go along with the stages of adjustment are normal and even expected, but if you don’ t understand that, it can feel as though you are the only one who is having problems.
• They feel like more like an international student but are pegged as a domestic student.
• They suffered profound homesickness due to the shear distance of their families and in cases where the parents repatriated at the same time. They lost their home and would be going to an unfamiliar place at school break times.
• They suffer from the fall out of unresolved grief (anger, depression, denial, rebellion, withdrawal).  The typical TCK experience means moving every two years or less. Pollock and Van Reken say that “…the  collection of losses and separations before the end of adolescence is often more than most people experience in a lifetime.”

I watched as my own children struggled with these issues and decided it did not have to be this way. I volunteered at a “Transition/Re-entry” seminar put on for children of missionaries who were returning for college and decided the messages spoken there needed to be taken to students who are living abroad and attending international or host-country schools before they leave for university. Unfortunately, because these students are returning ‘home’ they feel they do not need to hear these messages so they do not take advantage of re-entry programs when they are offered. That is when I decided to write the book.

This is a book that parents or international school educators and administrators can place in their students’ hands right along with their diplomas. It is best for parents and students to read it before the students leave for university because it is filled with lots of tips on preparing to leave, but if they remain in denial that they will have any adjustment difficulties, it is also written for when they do hit the wall. In that case they can turn directly to the chapter that best describes what they are going through emotionally at that particular time.

Examiner:  What can third culture kids do about the challenges they will face in college/university?

TQ:  The international experiences that TCKs have had make them very different from most of the people they will be surrounded by on their college or university campuses. For those students who have never been shown how to live out those differences in a positive way, their lives are literally at stake. Students who know how to live with those differences in a positive way can really thrive in the university experience and this book is meant to do just that.
 

Thanks to Tina Quick for the interview and writing this book! The Global Nomad’s Guide to University Transition will be available at the end of May 2010 on Amazon.com.

About the author:  Tina Quick is founder and Director of International Family Transitions (IFT), a consultancy designed to meet the needs of individuals, students and families in all aspects of relocating internationally. Working with third culture kids and international students before, during and after their college transition is Tina’s heartfelt passion.

For more information on the book, on IFT’s services or resources, please visit http://www.internationalfamilytransitions.com/
 

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