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B<\/span>randon Rodriguez \u201921<\/strong><\/span> is hard to miss, with a big smile and exuberant energy. And he\u2019s one of Goucher\u2019s biggest cheerleaders. (If you\u2019ve been on Goucher\u2019s website recently, you\u2019ve probably seen him.) The fact that Rodriguez is at Goucher seems both miraculous and somehow pre-determined.<\/p>\n His parents are from El Salvador. They grew up in the same town, Ahuachap\u00e1n, and they fell in love. But as if from Shakespeare, the families of the two hated each other. So, they left. They went to Silver Spring, MD, and they had a son and then a daughter. Rodriguez\u2019s father worked in construction, his mother as a housekeeper.<\/p>\n Family was everything to Rodriguez. And then, in 2007, his beloved father died of leukemia. School was challenging for Rodriguez, who is on the autism spectrum. He didn\u2019t know how to handle his feelings. But a high school teacher helped him turn things around, as did a program at school called CollegeTracks.<\/p>\n Rodriguez wasn\u2019t going to go to college. He had a job he loved at Starbucks and thought he\u2019d be happy working there forever. CollegeTracks convinced him it was worth it, though, and helped him figure out where to apply. That\u2019s how he heard about Goucher.<\/p>\n Mandile Mpofu \u201920<\/strong><\/span> was more than ready for college. Born and raised in Harare, Zimbabwe, she had a streak of self-reliance dating back to her years in boarding school as a young girl. \u201cBeing away from my mom for five days a week,\u201d she said, \u201cdefinitely made me more independent.\u201d Independent but also shy; at one point when she was young, her mother kept a henhouse. Mpofu\u2019s best friend became a chicken named Amy who always ran to her in the backyard.<\/p>\n At a college fair, Mpofu met a young Goucher alumnus who was also from Zimbabwe. He wanted to recruit other Zimbabwean students and described a close community to Mpofu. \u201cHe told me that everyone could find a place for themselves,\u201d she said. Hearing about the small class sizes and study abroad, she knew she\u2019d found the place for her.<\/p>\n From the kitchen of her family\u2019s apartment in Taipei, Taiwan, Leah Ruggiere \u201919<\/strong><\/span>, an American who was born in Budapest and had lived all over the globe, looked through Colleges That Change Lives with her parents. They pointed out Goucher to her. \u201cWhen I was reading about it, it did stick with me,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s nice we have to study abroad.\u201d She realized that anyone she met here would have at least some interest in seeing new places. She was used to being an outsider and the college\u2019s required study abroad program meant that every Goucher student would be one at some point, too. A connection waited for her before she ever landed in the U.S.<\/p>\n Rodriguez, Mpofu, and Ruggiere, all a year apart from the next, were about to embark on a challenge to find themselves and find their path. Goucher was a new place, and they had new lives to start, with friends to make and identities to question.<\/p>\n C<\/span>ollege is an adjustment for everybody. When Ruggiere got to Goucher, it was her first time living in the U.S. in eight years. Her father\u2019s job with Colgate-Palmolive had taken them to Hungary, Uruguay, Spain, a stop in Arkansas, and, finally, almost a decade in Taiwan. Ruggiere is part of a worldwide cohort called \u201cThird Culture Kids,\u201d or TCKs, a term for expats who grew up in a different country from their birth but who are not considered immigrants. Instead, they inhabit a third culture, made up of an international community of journalists, missionaries, corporate workers, diplomats, and military personnel. Coined by researchers in the 1950s to describe the children of American expats, it was popularized in the 1999 book Third Culture Kids<\/em> by Ruth Van Reken and David Pollock, now in its third edition.<\/p>\n Ruggiere went to a small American school in Taipei and felt American. But when she got to Goucher, she realized just how different she was from her fellow citizens. Her new friends were shocked that she didn\u2019t know about certain movies or pop culture events. And she felt uncomfortable talking about her rarified upbringing because she didn\u2019t feel understood, and others didn\u2019t see how her background had been complicated for her.<\/p>\n A common refrain among TCKs is that they must work harder to find themselves. When you grow up in a country where you aren\u2019t part of the culture, you grow accustomed to the role of outsider looking in. You have fewer things you can hold on to as part of yourself. You know what doesn\u2019t belong to you, but you don\u2019t know what does.<\/p>\n Ruggiere felt that. \u201cI didn\u2019t have a solid identity,\u201d she said. \u201cI never really knew what home was. I thought of it as a physical thing, this apartment here in Taiwan.\u201d She met others who were not only from somewhere but also of somewhere, who could claim Manhattan or Memphis as a part of them. TCKs are shaped by their surroundings, too, of course. According to Third Culture Kids<\/em>, many TCKs pride themselves on their adaptability and resilience.<\/p>\n Mpofu had her own adjustments to make. Coming to the States for school meant that costly flights to see her family were out of the question. \u201cI haven\u2019t been home in two years,\u201d she said. She was wholly immersed in the specific culture of Goucher, which wasn\u2019t like anything she\u2019d encountered before.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes I feel like I can\u2019t express myself,\u201d she said. \u201cLots of people think the same way or have the same ideas. I\u2019m from a different culture so, obviously, I have different views.\u201d She pointed out that Zimbabwe has a much more conservative culture than the U.S. does. Mpofu also had to think about race in a way that she didn\u2019t in Zimbabwe. In the U.S., \u201cI was made aware of my blackness, and being black is such a big part of your identity here.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, she welcomed the challenges to her sense of self, and she found lifelong friends everywhere at Goucher: on the tennis team, with other international students, and with her peers studying communications and French, in which she double majors. \u201cEverything that I\u2019m interested in, I\u2019ve found groups that I can connect with,\u201d Mpofu said. \u201cI love it here.\u201d<\/p>\n Rodriguez also can\u2019t help but notice the difference between him and some peers, financially and culturally. He is particularly aware of the privileges some other students have. For the most part, though, he doesn\u2019t mind. \u201cSomeone might say, oh, my Tesla broke down,\u201d he joked. \u201cBut I know people who have those privileges, and they don\u2019t put it in people\u2019s faces, and I really appreciate that.\u201d He\u2019s also happy to let well-off friends buy him lunch when they offer, he said with a laugh.<\/p>\n Call him \u201cSalvadorian,\u201d though, and Rodriguez will correct you. \u201cI don\u2019t know why, but it ticks me off. It\u2019s even easier to say Salvadoran than Salvadorian,\u201d he said with a shrug.<\/p>\n M<\/span>pofu, Ruggiere, and Rodriguez all had unique challenges in adapting to college. But they all agree they had benefits, too. Mpofu had dreamed of going to Paris; her high school in Harare organized trips every year that she couldn\u2019t afford. She finally went there for her study abroad. \u201cBeing able to go for four and a half months was a dream come true,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Mpofu felt like she was home. She made friends from the city\u2019s large African community, and France felt like a balance of the conservative Zimbabwe culture and the more liberal U.S. one she knew at Goucher. She also had an advantage over her American peers; coming to Goucher had already prepared her to step into a new environment.<\/p>\n \u201cI loved getting to know a new culture,\u201d Mpofu said. \u201cI\u2019d already been to the U.S. and had integrated, and to step outside of that again was scary and challenging at times, but I loved that experience of adapting to another lifestyle.\u201d<\/p>\n Mpofu saw Americans struggle to adapt. Some of them understood for the first time how many ways there are to look at the world. \u201cEverything you learn is relative to the way you\u2019re brought up and relative to the society in which you live,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Ruggiere, who grew up in Taipei, noticed differences during her study abroad experience, too. She studied in Copenhagen, and her fellow Americans took advantage of the proximity to other European countries to travel practically every weekend. Ruggiere did not\u2014she had already been to lots of places and instead focused on her classes and Copenhagen itself. It helped that a friend from Taiwan now lived there. \u201cI was just immersing myself in it,\u201d she said. She wanted to absorb the culture more meaningfully.<\/p>\n The impulse has served her well at Goucher, where she\u2019s made many deep friendships with people from many different backgrounds. She ascribes it to her understanding of how other people live their daily lives. \u201cHow people are brought up really affects their mindset,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Ruggiere talks about how her female friends in America will chide her for walking around at night by herself, but that\u2019s what everyone does in Taiwan. \u201cSince I had these different experiences in different cultures, it\u2019s enabled me to be accepting of different viewpoints,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Ruggiere started a Third Culture Kid club on campus, which attracted a small group of students. She then decided it wasn\u2019t really the Goucher way to have an exclusive club for the children of expats. She wanted something more inclusive. The club isn\u2019t meeting anymore, but she wants to start hosting get-togethers where everyone is welcome.<\/p>\n Rodriguez has always felt welcome at Goucher. When he found out he\u2019d been accepted, his mother considered it a miracle. \u201cShe cried her butt off,\u201d he said. Neither of his parents had finished high school, and his mother worked a full-time job, took care of two kids, and worried about a son who insisted he was fine working at Starbucks. Rodriguez got so excited about Goucher that he went to every admissions event he heard about. But there was still a problem\u2014how to pay for it. A mentor at CollegeTracks suggested he apply to Goucher\u2019s Maryland Scholars Program (MSP), which gives academic and financial support to first-generation students, even though he\u2019d missed the deadline.<\/p>\n \u201cI was like, OK, I\u2019ll email this Lisa Hill person,\u201d he said. Hill, now the senior associate director of admissions, remembered his face from all the Goucher events he came to. He was accepted into the program and received a financial aid package to cover his tuition. \u201cI was blessed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n There was another big advantage to joining MSP. Rodriguez moved to campus the summer before his first year started to participate in a bridge program to prepare for the rigors of college. The group of scholars had math and English class every day for three weeks and got into the rhythm of college life before anyone else had even arrived. \u201cIt\u2019s like skydiving,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cWe were running in the air for a few feet before landing.\u201d<\/p>\n Rodriguez felt like this was especially useful given that he is a first-generation college student. \u201cWe won\u2019t really be able to use our parents\u2019 tips. We don\u2019t have an uncle to go to and say, \u2018Hey, what was your first class like?\u2019 because they never had a first class.\u201d<\/p>\n He wants to be that uncle, to be someone others learn from. When he applied to Goucher, he said, \u201cI accidentally hyped it up a lot.\u201d Two of his classmates ended up in MSP with him. Now, he goes back to his high school, Watkins Mill, to talk about Goucher. After Rodriguez\u2019s first year at the college, more than 10 kids from his high school applied. It\u2019s that infectious energy of his that makes his fellow Gophers call him the mayor of Goucher.<\/p>\n He protests the name but doesn\u2019t mind what it symbolizes. \u201cGoucher needs more people like me, simply because we need people of color who are willing to bring others here,\u201d Rodriguez said. He\u2019s doing what others did for him\u2014pushing kids to imagine greater things for themselves. It\u2019s hard not to get chills as he talks through what that means.<\/p>\n \u201cMost of them are first-generation as well,\u201d he said. \u201cI realize the impact that I am having on my family, they are having on their family. So, my impact will not only be on them, but it will be on generations to come. I\u2019ll be a part of what they do in the world. You never know, one of them could have the cure to cancer and my push could have motivated that. It\u2019s a domino effect.\u201d<\/p>\n A<\/span>merican, foreign, first-generation: These are quick labels for complex humans. How about passionate, shy, smart, adaptable, driven, open? Can these people work together? Yes, they can. It\u2019s hard to cross cultural divides, but for Ruggiere, Mpofu, and Rodriguez, it\u2019s been so worth it. When we make ourselves uncomfortable by leaving the places we know well, we learn something about humanity and, thus, about ourselves.<\/p>\n Ruggiere will graduate in the spring. An art history major with an interest in graphic design, she\u2019s thinking through her options and sees herself doing something in the arts or in teaching. She might return to Taiwan. Or stay in the U.S. She\u2019s been to so many places; she might try to stay still for a while.<\/p>\n Mpofu wants to go back to Paris for grad school. After that, she\u2019d like to use everything she\u2019s learned and done at Goucher and beyond and take it back with her to Zimbabwe. The emphasis of her communication study is in arts administration, and she wants to start a center for the arts back home. \u201cMy country, as well as other African countries, has so much potential in the field,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She also wants to start a print publication for Zimbabwean youth. \u201cA lot of people leave the country, especially with our very weak economy,\u201d Mpofu said. \u201cA lot of people come to the U.S. like I did, and then don\u2019t go back home and don\u2019t use their knowledge to better the country. I think if we had a publication that showed youth there\u2019s so much potential, more people would stay.\u201d<\/p>\n Rodriguez has his own big plans. \u201cAs a kid, I was like, I want money,\u201d he said. He treasures memories of going to his uncle\u2019s soccer games with his father, who would first take him to Costco to buy water and Gatorade. They would easily make a hundred dollars from the sales. After, Rodriguez\u2019s father would offer him an ice cream cone instead of a cut of the profits; Rodriguez took what seemed like the better deal at the time. (He has regrets.)<\/p>\n So when he first got to Goucher, driven to take care of his family, he became a business major. Now, as a sophomore, his priorities have expanded. \u201cI no longer want my main goal in life to be to make money. I just want to be happy and make others happy,\u201d he said. \u201cI realized that my business skills could be useful in nonprofits, like CollegeTracks, the place that helped me get into college.\u201d<\/p>\n He still wants to make money; Rodriguez read an article about how saving $5 a week could make him a millionaire by the time he\u2019s 60. \u201cSo I\u2019m saving $50 out of every paycheck instead, to get there faster,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n First, he will study abroad in Italy. \u201cIt was one of my dad\u2019s last wishes, to visit Italy. I realized I have to do that for him,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cI have to go to Italy, for my family, for generations to come, to show them we can go to school, study abroad, and do all this good stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Goucher prides itself on bringing diverse groups of people together to solve complex problems. We spoke to a first-generation college student, an international student, and a former expat student to find out if that\u2019s really what\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":352,"featured_media":2471,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[87510,7935],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[87484],"class_list":["post-2213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-goucher-today"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.goucher.edu\/magazine\/files\/2019\/01\/Mandile-Mpofu_edit-1024x1016-1.jpg\")
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