<p>I started a TCK thread a while ago and got some excellent advice. D is a junior who has been living in various Asian countries since pre-K and will be returning to the US for college. I'd appreciate any insights from TCKs or their parents about their college search and selection, re-entry problems, culture shock, and any other advice and information that would be useful for this group of kids.</p>
<p>My D is American but grew up in Europe--frequent trips to US and spent a high school year there too-- I know there are other TCKs on this forum and would also like to hear about college experiences--D will graduate high school in 2006.</p>
<p>I don't exactly know what this means but I'll try it anyway.</p>
<p>bump?</p>
<p>It means Bring Up My Post--so you get higher on the New Posts list.</p>
<p>My nephew went to Williams after being brought up in Latin America....had a wonderful experience there.</p>
<p>D is a TCK probably going to the US for college in '06. She attended school in the US for two years aged 9 and 10, otherwise all experience has been in Europe and Asia. We don't 'get back' to the States very often. She seems to have absolute confidence that she'll fit right in. I was a TCK who lived in the US for the first time as a 17 year old entering college so I know she has some surprises in store. But - and I posted this on the earlier thread so apologies for the repetition - in my experience Americans are so unbelievably generous and welcoming that I never had to worry about 'no place to go for Thanksgivng.' Small things can be stumbling blocks: I had trouble with the money, mixing up quarters and nickels. It is easier if you don't have an American accent, then allowances are more quickly made. Probably the hardest thing was not picking up references to popular culture - e.g.not having a clue about the characters in popular TV shows - this would be less likely nowadays, I think, what with satellite TV, the internet.</p>
<p>Had another, less positive, thought - I remember being shocked at how little my fellow classmates knew about the world beyond American shores - this was in the early 70s at a world class university and I couldn't believe how ignorant these 'best and brightest' were about other countries. I wonder how this has changed and worry that D will be similarly disillusioned. We are definitely looking for places with a high percentage of internationals. Anyone have any more recent experience? Momrath?</p>
<p>Third culture kids should go to school in California. They will not be ready for the rest of teh US.</p>
<p>oooh goodies a thread for me! Yeah I'ved lived in Southeast Asia my entire life (except for summer vacations to the States) and I will be graduating in about a month. Next year I'll be attending Berkeley. I've gone to school in DC for a few months when I was evacuated (twice in high school) so I don't think the adjustment to college will be that difficult. America isn't too different from the big, Westernized cities in Asia that I've grown up in.</p>
<p>Interesting post Samuck. Momrath has some excellent advice for TCKs and college. How was your experience adjusting to the US teenager culture? My D has attended American schools in Asia and is used to a very diverse group of kids, so a college with diversity, and hopefully a lot of other tcks is essential. I worry that the culture shock will complicate all the other adjustments she'll have to make like being away from home etc. </p>
<p>Yeaho - congratulations on your acceptance to Berkeley. We are considering Ca schools but have no family or friends there and have never even visited. How did you come up with your list of colleges to apply to?</p>
<p>Most extended family resides in CA. Also both siblings went to college in northern california. Besides UCs and Stanford (wl), also applied to Duke (wl), Penn (rejected) and Brown (rejected) because I liked the atmosphere of those schools when I visited.</p>
<p>Hey holycow, How's your daughter's list shaping up?</p>
<p>Forgive me if I repeat what I've posted before. My son is now finishing up his sophomore year at Williams. So far it's been great.</p>
<p>The major challenges that he's faced have been mostly logistical. From Jakarta to Williamstown is a kind of "you can't get there from here" situation. We've ended up spending hundreds of dollars on car services which sounds like an indulgence, but when you have a jetlagged kid who's just traveled 30 hours sometimes you have to choose convenience over expense. So, I'd say take the location seriously.</p>
<p>The second thing is what to do with his stuff at the end of the year. I'm sure that bi-coastal kids have the same issues, but it really does put extra pressure on kids at exam time to have to think about packing and storing. </p>
<p>Indonesia has had more than its share of news in the past two years which has generated a lot of interest. Although the actual incidents were negative (bombings, tsunami) the opportunity to talk about Indonesia has been very positive. At least everyone knows where it is now. But what Samuck says is very true. American kids (and adults for that matter) are very insulated.</p>
<p>My son has been very, very fortunate to fall in with a great group of kids. I attribute a lot to the LAC environment, but I'm sure that many kids from overseas do fine at bigger schools as well. When he has had emotional or physical issues -- e.g., wisdom teeth removed, academic struggles -- the kids, the junior advisors, the instructors were really there for him. Knowing that he is in a friendly and supportive environment is very important for us.</p>
<p>For short holidays (there are more than you'd expect) my son's always found someone to visit. Keeping in touch with other expat kids from highschool has been very helpful as they are all in the same boat. Again, a travel budget for holidays is really helpful. Flights are cheap and it's a good chance to see more of America. We've arranged for him to come home at Christmas and for a a few weeks in the summer as part of my employment compensation package. Think about negotiating this with your employer.</p>
<p>The college has a reasonable amount of racial diversity (for an LAC), but the surrounding area is primarily white. For my son this has been like going to a foreign land and ironically it's somewhat exotic for him. It's the first time that he's been exposed to the "real" America, having lived in Asia for most of his life and visiting mostly New York City on home leave. In a odd sort of way, he's enjoyed being the one who's never seen certain popular TV shows, who doesn't get political references, for whom a trip to WalMart is like a magical mystery tour. </p>
<p>I recently read an interview with Rachel DeWoskin, a young American woman who grew up shuttling between the US and China. She made a big splash in her role as an American femme fatale in a Chinese soap opera and wrote a book about her experiences "Foreign Babes in Beijing." She said, I dont want to live anywhere all the time for the rest of my life. I like the feeling of being in between and of being on the periphery of things. I think this really sums up my son's feeling toward America and Asia. </p>
<p>As far as the college search and selection process goes, my advice to your child is to visit as many colleges as you can and still spend a day at each one. If you need to limit your choice geographically, then do so. Be prepared for surprises. Colleges that you think you'll love will fall off the list. Long shots will move up to the inner circle. Take good notes, buy a video as a reminder, get the e-mail of a "friend" on campus, an student advisor or adcom member whom you can communicate with when you're back home. Exposure to another culture is a big hook in admissions -- especially if it's one of the weird and wonderfuls (extra credit if for any Islamic influence). Be sure to capitalize on this in your application: i.e., think of living in a foreign culture as an EC.</p>
<p>Hi Momrath! I'm glad you found this thread - I was awaiting your sage advice.<br>
D's list is all over the place. She and her father will do a 10 day road trip and will try to see about 12 colleges - the most they can spend at any one place is about 2 hours.<br>
She thinks she needs a huge city school with lots of people, courses to choose from, diversity, and preferably near lots of good places to go shopping. Bearing in mind that she has never taken a bus or subway, never shared a bathroom let alone a bedroom, and is generally inexperienced in almost everything most American teenagers take for granted, I think she needs a smaller, closer knit community.<br>
So I am letting her choose the colleges she wants to visit but am insisting she look at some that I think she should consider.
I think one big factor will be transportation - I can't imagine her finding her way from a rural college to an international airport on her own. I'm pretty sure she'll need to be in or very near a major city. Preferably New York or Boston.</p>
<p>Hey, I'm a TCK/ missionaries' kid in Africa, and I'm in an American school right now, though I'm not American. </p>
<p>Many of my friends (when they go back to the states for their home assignment) struggle with fitting into the US culture.
Perhaps this may be more because of the MK (missionaries' kid) 'culture', but they found that it was hard to deal with all the wealth + materialism in the states.
Not knowing the 'latest fads' like which TV programs to watch or clothes to wear was also somewhat of a problem..
And then there was also the problem of the 'morality level' - being an MK, we lead sheltered lives, and many of my friends were shocked at what actually went on in the States.</p>
<p>Thanks for starting this thread, holycow! I'm a TCK too, though probably not a typical one (if there even is a typical TCK). I suppose you could call me 'half of a TCK' ...</p>
<p>I'm ethnically Korean but was born and raised in the States and moved 'back' to Korea for the beginning of 9th grade. I certainly consider myself an American, so living in Korea was really like living in a foreign country at first (I'm a junior now so it's my 3rd year here). Anyways, my point is that as a TCK who's grown up in the States, I think I could provide some insights.</p>
<p>First of all bondof3, I can understand where you're coming from. I'm at a Christian international school right now (though I am not religious) and an inordinate amount of my alumni friends who've lived overseas their entire lives have had a lot of trouble adjusting to, in particular, the amount of sex that goes on in college. This is weird to read, probably, but it might be something you want to take into account. Have any of you read the book House of Spirits by Isabel Allende? It's required reading for some English classes, but a few students at my school protested because the sexual violence portrayed in the novel was so disturbing they could not finish it. That should give you an idea of how sheltered some TCKs at my school can be. It's certainly not a bad thing to be shocked at such ideas, but it is not a good thing to be naive about them, either.</p>
<p>My international school is MUCH smaller than my old school in the States, and it is a private school. Many students here are used to knowing everybody on campus and having close, individual attention from teachers. Because of that, several people have told me that they really dislike not knowing who everyone is and not having the personal relationships with faculty they had in high school. I think this has more to do with personality than anything else, though.</p>
<p>Something else that I think is important to mention, as distasteful as it may be, is race. There are not many Koreans living in the parts of Long Island where I grew up -- I think my sister and I were 2 of perhaps 3 or 4 out of 900 kids in the junior high. Moving to a place where I'm in the majority race was a real shock. Though most TCKs move around like crazy, there are a few students I know who only lived in the States for a few years and have lived in Korea for as long as they can remember -- they may as well be international students. One of my friends (class of 04) fit into this category. He is at a relatively small school (I don't want to say where, just for privacy) but he has had an extraordinarily difficult time adjusting to life in the US. He is used to having mainly Korean friends and told me that he feels 'uncomfortable' around 'white people,' and apparently it's still difficult for him. I think this is a real shame because going to an international school for 10+ years should have opened his mind to diversity, not sealed it shut. I am sure that most TCKs, however, are much more open-minded than the average high schooler in terms of different cultures and races. Still, it's probably important to note that some kids will have difficult adjusting to living in the racial minority, which seems to be a paradoxical problem for those TCKs...</p>
<p>The opposite was true for me when I moved to Korea. I went from a big, white (yes, I know that's not PC), suburban public school in New York to a tiny, mainly-Korean (I had never known that so many English-speaking Asians existed.. really), big-city private school, and that was a huge culture shock. I came from a school where at least a few 7th graders got pregnant each year to one where I had to take religious courses to graduate! I was shocked at the amount of attention I received from both student body and faculty -- no one would have cared so much about a new kid in a States public school. As a result I feel like I've taken the opposite road that other TCKs take: instead of going from sheltered/diverse/international school to a huge, american one, I've gone the other way around.</p>
<p>Because of that experience, I feel that I can tell how well or how poorly a student will adjust to the States, just by the way they act and speak and think. My sister is the same way, as well as some other TCKs I know who lived in America for a long time. When I see kids who I think will have a hard time in the States, it seems like they will have a major culture shock, no matter what university they end up at. And I think that's okay, as long as they have an open mind and realize that they have as much to offer their peers as their peers have to offer them. For Caucasian students, it can be as much a shock to find yourself a part of the majority race as any other part of the adjustment.</p>
<p>Okay, this was quite long. Hope this helps somebody, anyways. Good luck to all the TCKs going to or living in the States!</p>
<p>M_C! What a great post! Thanks for all your insights. You have given me a lot to think about. I think the college choice experience is very difficult for people like you and my D. She has attended a variety of large and small American or international schools in several different Asian countries and I know she will not feel comfortable in a college that does not have a high percentage of international students. It is so difficult to get a feel for any college when you only have a few weeks in the summer to look at as many campuses as possible.<br>
I can't even comment on your point about the amount of sex that goes on in US colleges - and I haven't got a clue how my D will handle it. All I can say is I wish I hadn't read Charlotte Doyle.
I really appreciate your post. Thanks</p>
<p>Charlotte Simmons I mean.</p>
<p>I heard about that book! I don't know.. I find it difficult to trust the opinions of a 70 year old man trying to write from the perspective of an 18 year old, female college freshman living in the 21st century.. lol :)</p>
<p>I think he has a son at Trinity.....maybe he gets some of his viewpoint from him!</p>
<p>WoW! I never knew there was such a thread! Awesome!</p>
<p>Anyways, I probably travelled a notch more than most people here (blessing or curse?)</p>
<p>I posted this in other threads, and I'm too lazy to retype... so here I go...</p>
<p>Born in Korea 1991-1992
Went to Guatemala, 1992-1995
Back to Korea, 1995-1996
Went to Spain, 1996-1997 (public school)
Went to Mexico, 1997-1999 June (British Internation school)
Back to Korea, 1999-2001 (public school)
Went to Argentina, 2001-2004 (American Internation school)
Back to Korea, 2004-2005 (public school)
Went to Dominican Republic, 2005~ '09 (American Internation school)</p>
<p>Overview: 1 year in Europe. 11.5 years in LatAm. 5 Years in EastAsia
Funny huh? never lived in the U.S.</p>
<p>Been to (these were not vacations. Merely passing by a few days): Fiji, New Zealand, Portugal, France (Paris), Australia, Belize, Costa Rica, Uruguay, U.S. (New York, Calif LA, Texas)</p>
<p>Geez, I really feel good finding that there are other TCKs who really understand ppl like us. I totally agree with M_C</p>