New Blog!

Although this blog has served me well, I have a new blog that better fits my needs. You can continue reading my views on politics, current events and journalism, and access my complete portfolio on my new blog: http://thepoliticaljournalist.wordpress.com/

Please update your bookmarks and subscriptions and let me know what you think!

New Blog!

Although this blog has served me well, I have a new blog that better fits my needs. You can continue reading my views on politics, current events and journalism, and access my complete portfolio on my new blog: http://thepoliticaljournalist.wordpress.com/

Please update your bookmarks and subscriptions and let me know what you think!

Studying abroad can benefit your education, your career and most importantly - yourself

This article was posted on the Talent Egg's online magazine called the Career Incubator.

When I decided to study abroad last year, I knew that the decision would open new doors for me, academically and personally. But I never really imagined the impact it might have on my life.

As a third year student at the University of McGill, I knew that although I loved Montreal and the educational institute I was in, I needed a change. I felt that to truly benefit my education, it would be in my own best interest to take time to learn things from a different perspective - a new perspective.

As a political science student, I focused on international relations and my search for an exciting place to study led me to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. With a fantastic reputation and great incentives, I completed the long application form with just a couple months to spare before the term began. In early December, I received my acceptance letter, booked a flight to Israel, and left for a new experience.

Studying abroad is a new phenomenon among university students. A Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE) study indicated that “91% of employers (interviewed) identified the importance of cultural and other benefits (from study abroad).” Learning a new language, living in a different culture, becoming more independent and self-sufficient are only a few of the skills students learn, and bring back, to their home university.

Abby Plener, an English Literature major at McGill University, spent a semester at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. “My semester abroad taught me a lot – probably more than I will ever realize or could even begin to process now,” she said. Employers and academics are remarking the importance of studying abroad in allowing students to have a well-rounded education.

Thevi Pather, Associate Director at Camosun College, said “After 15 years of work in International Education, it never ceases to amaze me when I see the profound changes that occur in a student after their return from a study abroad experience. Many leave our shores with nervous excitement, but very visible fear of the unknown. Most students return brimming with confidence, and ready to tackle the next big challenge in their young lives.”

Researchers are now even attributing an improved academic performance after students return to their home campus from studying abroad according to an in-depth analysis on study abroad headed by the Georgia Learning Outcome of Students Studying Abroad Research Initiative (GLOSSARI).

Eden Sagman, a McGill graduate who now works in the high tech industry in Israel, where she spent a year studying abroad in 2008, says her program has helped her break into the business she always dreamed of working in. “Studying abroad enhanced my education. It opened my eyes to other perspectives about controversial issues,” she said. Learning about new cultures is key to a flourishing economy, which needs new ideas to breed entrepreneurship and start up companies.

Although studying abroad has been seen as beneficial, it can be difficult to arrange. Picking a school, approving courses, planning a budget and often enduring a longer semester are all part of the difficulties of studying abroad. You can look forward to meeting with ten professors just to get one course approved, and once you return, you have to ensure all your information is received in a timely fashion. However, don’t let this bureaucracy hold you back. Studying abroad helped me realize so much about myself that I never would have discovered. I learned to be independent in a foreign country, navigate across cities and met incredible people along the way. And I know next semester, my education will have benefited because of it.

“While at UCT, I often got the question, ‘Why are you studying here? The universities are so much better in North America.’ In general, studying abroad made me reflect a lot on the degree to which Western countries have a monopoly over education – defining the standards of what is “good” education, how the university system should work, what we value in or educational institutions, and even the texts and authors we focus on,” Plener said.

There are so many other viewpoints out there - and studying abroad makes us question everything we're learning, and helps us become better people. We learn to always strive to demand the best out of educations and ourselves.

"Legum servi sumus ut liberi esse possimus"* (Cicero)

Paul William Roberts' book, "Homeland" depicts America's downfall from 1950 to 2050, where she becomes an isolated world empire. His work of fiction, although many of the events he describes are real and familiar (watergate scandal, US coup d'etats in Panama, Georgia, Lebanon...),  describes how modern day America becomes a cold, unfriendly country, seeking world domination. National security is at such a risk, that in 2050, American presidents are no longer identified by name - you vote for a party instead. Media corporations all work together to relay one message and this is all carefully coordinated by the policy planning committee of the US administration.

As the main character recounts the last years of his life, he gives us a chilling image of the world to come: Israel is destroyed by a Chinese nuclear bomb that wipes out the entire country; a "friendship war" erupts between the US and Canada, and the US conquers Canada, becoming "The United States of North America, USNA." (And of course, the nuclear bomb the US uses to gain Canada - and all the resources she comes with - does not destroy the precious Alberta oil fields); a nuclear bomb destroys Seattle and other American states; Muslims are no longer free to practice their religion in the US so they either leave or practice in hiding; the US finds itself in a another cold war, this time against the Chinese; and so the US becomes a "super-government" in control of all other governments, known as "US-Global."

The brief description of the plot in the book's insert describes all these events and initially, it seems it will be a fascinating tale of America's downfall (or perhaps rise?) that will take place in just forty years. Yet, these events are only related in the last eight pages of this book and instead, the author focuses on depicting the very slow US regression from 1950. The first 250 pages of this book tell the story of the US as we know it - or perhaps, as we don't know it. The book sheds a new light on the US relationship with Saudi Arabia, Israel, the war in Iraq (just a plan to access oil, all along) and various other foreign policy operations that the US plays a discreet role in overthrowing their democratically elected governments: Panama 1989, Serbia 2000, Belarus 2001, Georgia 2003, Ukraine 2004, Kyrgyzstan 2005, and Lebanon 2005.

By revealing how the policy planners and advisors work in the US administration, the reader finds himself slowly understanding how the carefully constructed national security and foreign policy objectives can all come crumbling down. For example, the main character is recruited to work as the head of a policy planning organization. His job is to research the best foreign policy options for the United States. However, as he explains in the book, he is manipulated and presented with information to make certain decisions, only realizing later on that his thoughts were controlled by someone else.

One of the main ways the book expresses the failure of democracy in the US is that even when presidents change, foreign policy often doesn't (and for those of you who say Obama is changing this, know we have yet to see him take any different action than his predecessors, even though he claims his views are different) and this is because those who work in the US administrations - the advisors, the planners, the less prestigious jobs - they do not change every four years. Their opinions and thoughts continue on ensuring US foreign policy generally remains the same.

So while the book is interesting, especially for a political science junkie like myself (and I do note that if you haven't heard of terms like the military-industry complex and realpolitik, the book does not really give any basic explanations), the most fascinating part of the book is left till the end. It is only in the last eight pages that we hear of the deterioration of the US. In fact, it is only in the last chapter that the author begins discussing the 21st century. Perhaps the author wants us to realize how the events that occurred and are occurring will affect the world as we know it, and therefore he takes us down a slow recount of all the mistakes the US has made in the last hundred years. But readers expect the author continue this slow recounting, and the last ten pages of the author's explanation of the new world order, feel rushed and neglected.

I believe the author made this deliberate choice to show us that it does not really matter what happens in 2050 - the specifics don't matter but the general picture might (hopefully not) come true: nuclear bombs, global warfare, lack of privacy and freedoms. The names of the countries can be interchangeable - the author knows it doesn't have to be China who drops the bombs, and it might not be the Muslims who are kicked out of the US, but some ethnicity will, and some country will use a nuclear bomb. That's the point he is hoping to achieve.

Does this mean we need to send the US administration letters expressing our concerns or write to the media demanding our freedoms? It means we have to learn from the main character's mistakes: we have to learn to be aware. Only when a hundred years go by, and the world as we know it has changed and can never go back to what it was, will we realize what we missed. So the author is asking us to open our eyes, in the hopes that his story never comes true.



* We are slaves of the law in order that we may be free

The return to the not-so-holy land

So a few weeks ago, I returned to Canada from my five month voyage to Israel (and a brief stop in Zurich, Switzerland). I already miss the language, hearing little kids speak hebrew, the great food, the sensuous smells, the chaos and the holiness. But being home has its comforts too - its nice to host others, rather than always being hosted and its great to continue my 'real' life, get excited for the summer and start my great internship.

Since I've been back, I've realized that it's hard to remember everything you learned abroad. It's easy to forget you spent five months in another country, learning and growing from others around you. What I've learned is that all the answers I thought I would have by now don't exist. I've learned that I have more questions - about the Arab-Israeli conflict, about the future of Israel, about the value of education and about the possibility of world travel and new experiences. I may not have all the answers, but I feel I have gained from my time abroad, enough to know that those experiences were valuable and necessary for my education. And when I bring them back to my final year of my undergraduate study program, I know I can make a meaningful contribution to my academic career and the educational institute I will be in.

Getting close to the end

With just under a month left to go, my time in Israel seems very precious. I'm not sure when I will be back but I hope it will be soon. What is it about this land, that makes us yearn to be here, fight over this valuable land, die for this land?

Last week I visited the tombs of the patriarchs and matriarchs in Hevron, a mostly-Arab town. It surprised me how easy it was to get there. We went to the regular Jerusalem bus station and took a bus for an hour and arrived right in front of these tombs. The minute we got there, we heard the afternoon Arab call to prayer. It was ironic, or perhaps a little sad, that this holy Jewish site is now surrounding by those that do not value it. When you walk inside, you are immediately struck by the intricate designs of these caves. Beautiful patterns decorate the wall, but if you look closely, you see that the walls are covered in Arabic writing (which I could not read - new goal in life: learn to read Arabic), which shows us the transfer of power throughout history: a once Jewish site was once controlled by Arabs and is now back in the hands of Jews.

It's striking that by traveling only an hour away you enter a completely different world: Arab children playing with goats and chickens, broken down homes with rooster pens, and, sadly, the appearance as if this town is in a third world country. Why can I travel such a short distance and suddenly appear in an opposite world? I wish I could understand the reasons for these differences - is there someone we are to blame? Is it the Israelis? or is it the lack of self-determination and the Arabs refusal to become independent? Is there a way out of this situation? I know attempting to make a town like this more developed by simply providing them with higher technology tools might not solve anything, but is there something we can do?

It seems to be that the Arabs feel, and are, stuck: they have lived in these conditions for so long, it's hard to imagine anything else. But that is precisely the problem. The Jews in the early creation of Israel refused to live in these conditions and so they began to develop the country. Why has this technique failed in Arab villages? Has this technique ever been attempted?

And finally, what does the future predict for these Arab villages? Can we expect any sort of change?

Holocaust Memorial Day - Yom Hashoah

Last week, we were privileged to attend a Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Memorial Day) ceremony at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. After making it through three different rounds of security (bag checks, answering questions, more bag checks and the new check to detect any chemical residues on our hands in the last 24 hours), we arrived at Yad Vashem. The ceremony was outdoors with thousands of people from all over the world sitting together, watching this historic, heart-wrenching event. A memorial candle was lit by Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council.

The President of Israel, Shimon Peres, also delivered a speech (in quite difficult Hebrew, that actually required us to put in our translator headphones). He said that the victims of the Holocaust later became the state builders of Israel and for that, and so much more, we will always remember their legacy. There are two imperatives, he said, we must always remember: we must maintain our Jewish state, and build up our defense strongly, and we must take seriously threats of annihilation, like those coming from Iran. We can never allow a regime to stand forth and declare that their race or religion is superior - it is our responsibility to ensure no regime can ever do so again. He then turned to a Holocaust survivor sitting next to him and said, "Jewish history salutes you." He concluded with a powerful statement: No other nation has been beaten like the Jews, and no other nation has rebounded like the Jews."

Prime Minister Netanyahu also delivered a moving speech, which we were mostly able to understand in Hebrew. We are all sitting there today because, before their deaths, the Holocaust victims and heroes begged us never to forget them, to tell their stories. It was ironic, that after a week of beautiful weather, that night it was freezing cold. The wind was so strong and since many of us did not know we would need jackets, we sat shivering in our seats. Perhaps we were supposed to understand a tiny taste of what it is like to sit in cold, windy weather without any means of comfort (of course, ours was on a minuscule level, but I believe that any way we can learn to connect our lives with the Holocaust survivors is important, because by making these connections, we ensure we do not forget them). PM Netanyahu asked us: from ashes and dust, Israel came about. Did we learn anything from their sacrifices? We learned, and we must continue to learn, three important lessons:

a. To protect the good and fight against the bad. In every generation, there are those who stand against us, but we must ensure that every person has a right to live and have his freedoms protected. It is our job to ensure that the Nazi ideology never succeeds. We must ask ourselves: what values are we raising our children with? What are we doing to fight our enemies?

b. There is a limit to how much we can be patient and kind, there is a limit to the values of understanding we must preach. Because we cannot let our desire to teach understanding and patience overrule our necessity to defend our state.

c. We can never be silent when faced with evil, and that is why PM Netanyahu called on the UN and all other states to recognize the Iranian threat and stand against it.

He ended with saying that we did not get here by accident. We are here because it is our land and we must protect it.

The next day, on the cover of many newspapers, were these words: להילחם ברע וחנך לטוב - to fight against evil and educate for the good. And I had the privilege to hear these words straight from the Prime Minister himself. That is the beauty of this study abroad program - instead of reading books and newspapers, we partake in history ourselves.