Fitting in as a foreigner/third-culture-kid in college and beyond?

International Students
1

So this is kind of a long story…

I would be what many people would consider a “third culture kid”, or someone who has lived in many different places in their lives and moved a lot. Since I am kind of introverted and not all that outgoing, it has always taken me more time to make good friends, by which time I would have had to move again. I have spent a great part of my life in the german speaking countries of Europe. I am, however, an American citizen born in the US and have most of my extended family lives there. We moved to America when I was in 5th grade and stayed until the end of middle school. For the first time in my life I really felt like I was living somewhere I could call my home. It took me until my last year of middle school to finally “almost completely” fit into american society (since I was learning English from scratch). I had also lost the majority of my horrid german accent by that time. Life was good and finally I felt happy. Then my parents decided to move back to Germany. Let’s just say that that I was not happy about it. Anyway things happened the way they happened and we moved back. Now I am living here miserably and looking forward to attending college in America. I am however really anxious/worried about how my life (socially) will go in college and beyond. I have made good friends here in Germany, of which all are “internationals” or people really similar to me concerning the TCK thing. But no matter how hard I’ve tried I haven’t been able to mesh with the German society. Now I am really worried that I will never be able to feel completely at home somewhere, whether that is in the US or elsewhere. Looking at the nomadic life my parents have lived I’ve realized that it really isn’t for me… I want to find a place I love to live in and stay there. In other words I want to have a home. I’m just not sure whether I will ever be able to not feel a little bit like an outsider/foreigner in any country including the US.

I guess I just want to know whether any of you gone through something like this or if any of you know anybody in a similar situation who has successfully managed to integrate into American society? How did this influence your college experience (socially) and how did it work out for you after college? Did you only make friends with people with an international background or did you also manage to befriend others? Thank you so much :slight_smile:

2

I have watched my D’s go through this- TCK with the extra twist that they are citizens of multiple countries- none of which considers them ‘natives’ (on a social level). There is no single easy answer, but here are some thoughts:

‘my horrid german accent’: ok, to be fair you have to acknowledge that anybody who sees an accent as ‘horrid’ can’t really claim “no matter how hard I’ve tried…” You might as well admit to yourself that your resentment over being there (and whatever other negatives about your life) has influenced your ability to “to mesh with the German society”.

I’m not picking on you here: step one is to own your culture, and your culture has a Germanic thread to it.

‘I am however really anxious/worried about how my life (socially) will go in college and beyond’: again, some perspective here: this is true for 98% of college bound students (even the happy-go-lucky extroverts have qualms when setting off on this big adventure). Everybody worries about fitting in, and will have ways of seeing themselves as ‘different’- even the kids who have led what you imagine to be idyllic lives.

‘kind of introverted and not all that outgoing’ sounds like my 2nd D, currently a sophomore at a US university. To our huge surprise (and I think hers as well), this child- who each time we moved made a single best friend- through a combination of maturing and a good college fit- has a gang of great good friends. These friends run the gamut on backgrounds, from rural to urban, from super poor to super well off, from home-schooled and had never been more than 50 miles from home, to another TCK. What they have in common has nothing to do with the facts of their childhoods, and everything to do with a shared sense of humor and similar academic goals (though not subjects- they cover the sciences and humanities between them).

‘I guess I just want to know whether any of you gone through something like this or if any of you know anybody in a similar situation who has successfully managed to integrate into American society?’

Well, this is supposed to be what America is good at! integrating people into the society. I was with some non-nationals watching a 4th of July parade in the mid-west of the US once, and they commented on how many of the parade floats were hypenated- Lebanese-American, Jewish-American, German-American, Irish-American, saying ‘it seems as though all you have to do to be counted as American is say you want to be counted as American’.

In truth, your challenge won’t be integrating into American society- in college or after. It is likely that many of your friends and most of your first friends will be ‘people with an international background’- because you will have the a common reference point- and because no matter what, your world view is larger than many Americans.

Your real challenge is this:

‘I’m just not sure whether I will ever be able to not feel a little bit like an outsider/foreigner in any country including the US.’

And there is no answer to that, because you will create the answer as you grow into yourself. I see my D’s working through this. When we were traveling over the winter holidays I heard them ask each other ‘what do you tell people when they ask where you are from?’ The oldest (who finishes university this year) used to be the most bothered by it, but as her sense of who she is deepens, the relative importance of being able to say ‘I am from this one place’ has diminished. Where she used to envy her cousins- who will be in the same school from Pre-K through Grade 12, who have never moved, who go to the same summer camp with the same people from school- she now thinks that they have missed out on a lot, because their world is so small. She also thinks that they will have a harder time going off to college than she did!

Finally (b/c I am a musical theatre fan…), this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48YcZsB3sgk

3

…and this :slight_smile:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixmLJkEBVGY

4

A lot of universities and colleges in the US will have people from everywhere, and even in the state schools where the vast majority of the people are from one state, if it’s a big state school (without a strong culture like A&M, which tends to attract those Texans who want that culture) you’ll find all sorts of diversity (socioeconomic, racial, urban/suburban/rural). That said, the US definitely has regional subcultures, and how easy it is to mesh in depends on where you are. It’s harder in New England than in in NYC. It’s harder in MN than in the lower Midwest or CA. It’s probably harder in England and Germany than anywhere in the US.

Finally, as you get older, you’ll realize that home is what you make it. My home is my family and friends I made through school and work. It’s not really a place; it’s the people that I know.

5

My kids are third culture. They’ve lived a nomadic lifestyle moving from country to country since preschool. While we parents have remained overseas, the kids have repatriated to attend high school in the US. While their accents are American (middle school spent in in American curriculum intl schools; elementary education spent in British schools), culturally they are not. But both have had no problems w integrating socially w American kids, even though American kids are quite parochial in their world view.

6

You have to accept this is you. You will always have this partially German background, and that’s ok.

Living in a different country from the one I grew up in I know there are certain things I cannot share with people (childhood TV shows is one - though everyone has seen the Simpsons). But this sin’t a negative unless you make it one. You will find that lots of people are interested in your different background, and those who are not interested don’t care. It’s very unlikely you will meet anyone who will reject you due to having lived somewhere else as a kid (think about how bizarre that sounds. If you made friends with someone and then found out they grew up abroad, would you suddenly shun them?).

Your biggest problem is being an introvert. Everywhere else in the world this is considered a normal part of the scope of personality types. In American it’s considered a severe disability.

7

Oh, it is not considered a “severe disability.” That’s ridiculous.

8

Have you not seen endless threads in the parents’s forum about this. It is the worst possible thing for an American parent to contemplate - their child is an introvert and therefore their life is not worth living. In no other culture would this be an issue.

9

Many of us on CC are introverts ourselves. Anyway, find such a link if one truly exists.

Hint - introvert is not synonymous with shy or socially awkward.