The Global Nomad’s Guide to University Transition

The Global Nomad's Guide to University Transition Quick, Tina L. (2010). The global nomad's guide to university transition. London, UK: Summertime Publishing. ISBN: 978-1-904881-21-6The Global Nomad's Guide to University Transition (Quick, 2010) is specifically written for third culture kids (TCKs) who will begin their journey into university life. TCKs are defined as those who grew up in places outside of their home or passport cultures and have no sense of belonging in neither the home culture nor host culture. These students usually find their sense of belonging in the third culture, which is the community of people who share the experience of living outside their passport cultures. This book also aims to prepare parents of TCKs to better understand their children's challenges thus assisting them with a smoother transition to college. As a mother of three college-aged TCKs and an adult TCK herself, Tina Quick shared her rich experiences of cross-cultural transition in the book. She also shared practical tips with both TCKs and their parents in overcoming potential difficulties, building new relationships, and finding their own identity. The major audience for this book is TCKs and their parents who may us it as a guide; but the topic and Quick's prose may appeal to a broader readership. This book consists of 11 chapters and emphasizes on the following six aspects of TCKs' transition into university life.Transition CycleThe transition cycle, extensively discussed in chapters two, three, four, and five, is the highlight of the book. Quick adopts the Transition Cycle theory from Dave Pollock who was a recognized authority on TCKs, and incorporates it with her own experiences, stories, and examples. She argues that the transition cycle does not only apply to TCKs, but also to everyone who goes through it. Understanding the five stages of transition (involvement, leaving, transition, entering, and reinvolvement) will better assist students to anticipate the changes in their lives. It will also help them better manage the challenges they may encounter in their transition to the third culture. Using colloquial expressions and no jargon, Quick makes the introduction to the Transition Cycle theory fun to read and easy to understand. For instance, she uses "itchy feet" and "dragging feet" to describe the feelings of anxiety and denial students have towards changes. She also uses "fish out of water" to refer to uncertainty and ambiguity in the transition stage.Unsolved GriefIn chapters three and four, Quick calls the reader's attention to acknowledge unsolved grief of TCKs, which is often neglected by parents. The high mobility lifestyle exposes TCKs to more losses than other people ever experience in their entire life. Quick argues that TCKs should be given enough time to grieve about their losses and accept the losses. She believes parents play an important role in this process. As such, she encourages parents to embrace their own losses, understand their child's grief, and provide them with emotional support.RelationshipsAnother important contribution of this book is the discussion on how TCKs relate to their homecountry peers. This is discussed primarily in chapter six. It is often assumed that it is not an issue for TCKs when they return to their home-county culture. However, Quick provides a totally different perspective. Quick explains specifically why TCKs feel disconnected from their peers in their home-country and why TCKs think their relationship with these peers is superficial. She further points out that TCKs are different from international students in many ways but they tend to be more comfortable with international students since they often share similar cross-cultural experiences. …