Denizen | for third culture kids

So, here are our words of advice, the things we would’ve told our freshman year selves, if we could. It’s not dressed up, it’s not loaded with research. Honest thoughts, in our own words, from real Third Culture Kids.

I’m not pretending to be an expert, but for international students moving to the United States, there are many factors to consider that may be obvious to American students but not as clear to those coming from abroad.

It may seem obvious, but taking the time to say proper goodbyes is critical. People often subconsciously withdraw from relationships as they’re about to leave. So, instead of clocking out from your relationships early, make a point of letting friends and family know just how much you care.

You may not know how to drive, but odds are your new American friends will be more than willing to drag you on a crazy cross-country bender courtesy of the nation’s interstate highway system. Adventures and hilarity will surely ensue in the land of Route 66.

Today, I live in a place where I have no say: the United States — and could have a say in places where I do not live: Switzerland, Canada and Iran. I hold a right to three votes that I believe many others are more entitled to, and have no entitlements where I think my vote should count.

As diplomat kids, missionary kids, corporate kids or whatever else living abroad, we were expected to represent the United States on our teenage shoulders with everything that we did. To others, we were America. To us, we were American by passport, having grown up abroad.

Julie Englander, a Chicago-based journalist, is currently filming a documentary on Missionary Kids returning to the U.S. and adjusting to their supposed “home culture.”

The typical Third Culture Kid has moved at least once by their 5th birthday, and will move at least four times in their life. They speak at least two languages and have a 4-year college-degree. Data based on an informal online survey of 200 Third Culture Kids.

Denizen’s writers recall where they were when the Sept. 11 tragedy happened, and how it changed their lives.

“I’m giving it 10 more minutes. Then these cookies are mine,” I thought to myself. I leaned back in my chair at the student center, desperately resisting the urge to eat the giant plate of cookies I had ordered. I was hoping that, within the next 10 minutes, someone would show up and have some of them.

Now it’s quarter-life crisis #2. Having just been laid-off, I began re-prioritizing my life. This was an opportunity of a lifetime. With my 100 hour work weeks, I used to dream about what I would do if I could just take one day off.

Getting laid-off is not ideal, but I quickly realized that it answered my long time desire for (temporary) “early retirement” and an escape from a job that I was miserable at. The minute I entered my apartment, I tossed all my papers aside and jumped on my computer, immediately logging onto all the travel sites I could find.

Nancy Drew never solved a mystery by googling it, let’s keep the TCK identity mysterious.

I’d pretty much spent my entire adulthood in the United States without needing a car. Then I moved to Guam.

In truth, the United States was one of the most foreign countries I had ever visited.

A syndrome of the global nomad lifestyle, “international introversion” is a gradual, chilling indifference to your peers. Put more simply, you lose the depth in your connection to friends because of the never-ending transitions.

“It would be rare for me to arrive into a city and not have a friend who is there to give me a place to crash or a business connection,” said Justin Bedard, the executive director of the JUMP! Foundation. “I can safely say that a considerable amount of JUMP’s development has been fueled by my TCK network.”

Brian Linton, 24, was recently named to Bloomberg Businessweek’s list of “America’s Best Young Entrepreneurs.” A lifelong lover of water, Linton decided that creating a business was the best way to have a real impact on cleaning the oceans in a globalized way.

Celeste Schenck, the President of The American University of Paris, tells her students: “When you are so much of the world, you have a responsibility for the world. “