If there's one thing I'll take away from my business school experience, it's how educated international students are. More educated than us stupid Americans.
Don't get me wrong - I love this country (an apparently they do, too, or they wouldn't come here to study) and I feel extremely lucky to have been born here. It's all luck. There's no rhyme or reason why I was born American versus Chinese versus Kenyan, so no American should be smug about their nationality.
But these international students are smart. In class, they'll talk about world issues like it's second nature, while I sit there with a blank look on my face. I guess when you're fat and happy, it's OK to be dumb, too.
Not only do I think every one of our schools should mandate classes on world history/current and international events from K-12 grades, but we should mandate language requirements, as well. And not just one or two classes, but a class every year. It's not just the schools, though...we need to educate our kids, so we're just as educated as everyone else, and can work together to elicit some change. We've been "those stupid Americans" for too long. It's time to catch up to the rest of the world.
So for now, I'll just try to pick up a WSJ and catch up on the last 5,000 years of world history I've missed out on. And maybe get an international student to help me out in the process.
(Stepping off my soapbox).
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