This paper describes how students use language as a currency with which to navigate institutional structures and negotiate "fitting in" to social structures of higher education, paying particular attention to South Korea (hereafter Korea) and the English-speaking West. This paper emerged from a qualitative research study examining identity construction in students from internationally mobile Korean families; participants had lived abroad with their families for at least three years before university and subsequently attended universities in Korea, the United States, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong.