In the fall of 2006 students were invited to submit compelling stories that articulate how their undergraduate international experiences have helped meet the United States’ need to understand global situations and compete in the global arena. NAFSA: Association of International Educators and Abroad View are proud to announce the winner and runner-up of the Student Diplomat Essay Contest.

Frustrated, I turned my head from the computer screen and stormed off: I refused to even look at those stupid flak jackets. My dad, in one of his less rational moments leading up to my semester abroad in London, thought he would show me the latest fashions in shrapnel and debris repelling body armor. He thought it might be useful to wear “just in case” while riding public transport during my five months away from home. What on earth was my dad thinking? What could possibly motivate this otherwise intelligent man to urge his son to wear a “flak jak,” a serious piece of defensive equipment that he once wore while riding Huey helicopters over Vietnam?

It must have been fear—I have no other explanation for it. My 54-year-old father was terrified for the safety of his eldest son, a debilitating panic wrought by “what ifs” and the unknown. And I knew exactly what caused this panic. Less than three months before my planned departure for study abroad, four young Muslim men decided to blow themselves up on three Tube trains and a red double-decker bus, killing 52 innocent people aboard and wounding hundreds more. As had happened after September 11, 2001, a widespread suspicion of all things Arab and Muslim reared its prejudiced head in society, percolating down even into the psyche of my own papa.

I could empathize with him. My dad was fully aware that University College London, the institution where I was headed, was only blocks away from the Russell Square bombing site. And he knew, much to his discouragement, that I would be traveling on London’s public transport regularly. Clearly, this attack hit a little too close to home for comfort. Would I be safe on the Tube?

It is this question and these thoughts that occupied my mind on September 3, 2005, my first day in London, as my train on the Piccadilly Line rattled through its trademark deep tunnels. I nervously peered at my fellow passengers. Though I like to think of myself as receptive to people of all cultures, I could not help feel a tinge of anxiety creep up my spine and invade my countenance as I registered skin colors and religious garbs I had scarcely seen before, certainly not in my largely white hometown, nor even at my home university which is renowned for its diversity and is located in the multihued city of Los Angeles. My dad’s enjoinder to “just keep your wits about you” echoed in my head. Should I move to another Tube train? Was this a rational thought? Should I have worn a flak jak “just in case?” Was I being paranoid? God, I was in London, and I was afraid for my safety. Read the rest of Kevin's essay.

When I first arrived in Germany for my year-long education abroad experience, my ultimate goal was to mentally set aside my U.S. citizenship and try to pass myself off as a German. Many of my efforts to achieve this were naturally concentrated in the area of language—I stopped reading books written in English and switched to German instead; I learned Tübingen’s regional dialect, Schwäbisch, and spoke it as often as possible (especially in public); I appropriated all the small but not insignificant habits of daily life as a German—like counting on my fingers using my thumb—and picked up the slang and social norms of German university life. For most of the year, I prided myself on how well I had blended in and how much I had changed and how much less American I had become.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like being an American. Instead, I was so hungry for more of the German language, culture, and life that my appetite could not be satiated. It was not enough to simply speak the language or understand or even live within the culture–I wanted to make it my language, my culture, my way of life.  Read the rest of Matthew's essay.

Competition Guidelines

The Student Diplomat Essay Competition was hosted by NAFSA and Abroad View.  Read the full contest rules and guidelines.

Source: http://www.nafsa.org/public_policy.sec/study_abroad_2/student_diplomat_essay