“Where Are You From?” Is Doing a Lot of Work

At St Andrews, “Where are you from?” is rarely a request for one place. It is an invitation to produce an itinerary. The answer might begin in Boston, detour through boarding school in Switzerland, pause for a childhood in Singapore, and end with the qualification that home is technically Dubai, although nobody actually lives there anymore. By the time introductions are finished, the table has covered more geography than certain degree modules.

I say this fondly, as a willing participant in it. I am from Salt Lake City, Utah, but I have also lived in Germany, the UK, Guinea, and Rwanda. It is an interesting answer, or at least a long one, and I would be lying if I said I had never enjoyed watching people’s eyes brighten as the list continues. I like this about St Andrews. An ordinary lunch can contain several accents, three definitions of “home,” and a disagreement about which country commits the worst crimes against coffee. Soon, you have opinions about cities you could not find on a map. 

Being international, however, is not quite the same as being internationally minded. One is a characteristic, the other a habit of thought. Where characteristics can feel like part of the dress code, we too easily see travel as proof of an open mind. Living abroad can certainly be transformative, but it can also mean changing countries while remaining among people like those you left behind. You can cross an ocean without ever crossing a meaningful social boundary. Where someone has lived tells us which places they have encountered, but not whom they knew or whether anyone changed their mind. A passport records movement, not curiosity.

Mobility can also represent very different experiences. For some, moving abroad is an opportunity enabled by money and passports; for others, it results from obligation, instability, or necessity. The same list might represent freedom, disruption, or both. Folding all of this into “international experience” makes fundamentally different lives sound like entries in the same extracurricular category. Yet the long answer to “Where are you from?” comes with cachet. Someone who has lived in six countries may be presumed to possess six countries’ worth of perspective. Someone who has stayed in one place can appear less worldly, as though knowing one community deeply is merely a failure to accumulate air miles.

This shapes whose opinions sound authoritative. ‘When I lived there’ is a powerful opening clause, because lived experience can reveal what textbooks miss. But residence is not comprehension. Knowing a country’s airports, international schools, and favourite brunch spots is still knowing something about it — but it is not the same as understanding the place itself. Here lies the endearing contradiction of St Andrews. The University brings together students from across the world, yet we inhabit a narrow one. Our friendships cross borders while sharing similar educations, ambitions, and economic backgrounds. We compare childhoods across continents, then discover that we attended variations of the same school and are applying for variations of the same internships. 

It would be flattering to think I was an exception. My own history produces the satisfyingly complicated answer that plays well during introductions. Living abroad has shaped me profoundly. It has also taught me how little the list itself proves. I can name the places I have lived far more easily than I can measure how well I understood them.

This is not an argument for shorter introductions. They would make Freshers’ Week much duller. We should keep asking where people are from — but care more about what comes next: What did you misunderstand when you arrived? Who did you actually know? What do you think differently about now? A well-travelled life can start a conversation. It should not settle one.

Illustration by Anaahat Tung