In the Fall of 2019, I was wrapping up a two year, two-Master’s degree program in International Education Management and Public Administration. Yea, it’s a mouthful. I was miserable throughout the program, and truly only returned after the first summer break to complete the degree because of sunk cost.
I was more interested in critical, philosophical discussions about whether or not study abroad programs and were just neocolonialist practices veiled in “personal growth” rhetoric, or whether the climate implications of the plane rides required for studying abroad were driving the world more apart than together. It was hard to feel “at home” in a program where I was discovering that maybe the career trajectory I had been working towards for close to a decade was one that I wanted nothing to do with.
Anyway. Still had to finish the final projects of the program in order to get those capital letters after my name, so I pressed on. I worked with a wonderful, kind, creative, and wise professor for my capstone/practicum/final projects. I felt she really understood where I was coming from with my critical questions, and she worked with me to find a way where I could channel this combo of frustrated/exhausted/existententially challenging energy into a means that would be academically “valid” for the completion of my degree.
What emerged from working together was a series of writings about the fields of international education and cultural exchange through the lens of my experiences as a Third Culture Kid. I guess this was the alpha testing phase of what would end up being this project – Third Culture Provisions.
Somewhere while preparing this substack launch in the Fall of 2022, I had the thought (and intention) of revisiting and publishing these pieces, as they sat in a “grad school archive” folder in my Google Drive collecting binary digital dust. And only recently while doing a spring cleaning of various storage units in the cloud did I rediscover these writings. While reading them, I wanted to give Fall 2019 Caitlin a big hug. She was going through a lot. But also, I think what I was writing about still holds a lot of merit, and if anything, is given a whole new perspective given recent tectonic shifts in the areas of global diplomacy, international exchange, (im)migration, etc..
So I’m deeming it time to publish the backlog of writings that spawned Third Culture Provisions, in the continual quest to discover what this project actually is.
I think it will also put, on record, more context and history as to who I am, what I care about, and where I’m coming from.