The Foreign Service Journal, June 2007

74 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U N E 2 0 0 7 S CHOOLS S UPPLEMENT However, life in a small college town can offer a lot, too. The school is often the center of the community and creates its own cultural world and close-knit society. Crime is usually much lower. Schools like Oberlin, Grinnell and St. Olaf offer a last chance to live in a “bubble” before moving on to graduate school or a job in a large city. A suburban setting can be the ideal compromise. Drew University lies in the woodsy commuter town of Madison, N.J., where the train near campus gets you into the Big Apple in less than an hour. 4. Do you wanna be… all by yourself? If you are a Foreign Service dependent, your family home may be far away. The State Department will pay for one round- trip ticket per year under the educa- tional travel allowance. That means you or your family will have to pay for any other holidays that you travel home, and that usually translates into international kids staying on campus or in the area during short holiday weekends or even during longer breaks. Find out when the dorm will be open and when it will be closed. Plot the international and domestic routes, as well as the duration, of your trip between home and school. It’s best to know in advance the cost and hassle of going home. Choosing a college near relatives can be a win-win situation. Grand- parents, in particular, are often thrilled to have a grandchild living nearby, and students who are a little homesick can get some TLC. Not only that, but sometimes the unexpected happens. If your parents live halfway around the world, who will be nearby to help you through a hospital stay or other crisis? If you will not be living near friends and rel- atives, check the college’s resources and support system for emergency situations. Lastly, be sure to research how many undergraduates live on cam- pus. Some colleges are known as “commuter schools,” where the place There are several hundred wonderful colleges out there that are still a bit of a secret, known only to their satisfied alumni. World Youth Headed to ‘Global Citizenship’ A ccording to the 2006 World Youth Identity and Citizenship Survey, two-thirds of the 3,300 multinational, multiethnic respondents, aged 24 years or younger, described themselves, first and foremost, as moving toward global citizenship. They understand themselves in an international context and are concerned about the problems confronting the world they are to inherit. Asked to rank the greatest problems currently facing the planet, the majority of respondents listed poverty, terrorism and disease, espe- cially HIV/AIDS. The most serious security threats, in their view, are the inability of world leaders to reach consensus, unequal standards of living and insufficient opportunities to promote interpersonal understanding. Survey results will be used to develop curricula and materials in the emerging field of global citizenship education, says Ron Israel, vice president of the international nonprofit Education Development Center, Inc. Founded in 1958, EDC supports the Our World Alliance mission to promote global citizenship education and build and support an international network of educators working on global citizenship education activities. EDC, the secretariat for Our World Alliance, worked with New York University’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service to admin- ister the survey. The 2006 survey found that “global citizens” are overwhelmingly European. By virtue of the European Union experience, they are already accustomed to viewing themselves in a broader context than traditional nation-state boundaries. However, of respondents who considered themselves either “getting started” or “moving along” on the path to global citizenship, young people from Africa and the Middle East were the clear majority in both categories, followed in each case by youth from North America. A global citizen is defined by the Our World Alliance as an individual who recognizes the interconnectedness of today’s world and has as their ultimate goal the ideal of world peace. A global citizen has lived abroad and is multilingual. They are capable of not only appreciating, but identifying with, the peoples, cultures and humanistic products of other parts of the world. They would marry someone of a different cul- tural or religious background and are willing to travel abroad to work or study. They support international organizations such as the U.N. and advocate intergovernmental cooperation for the solution to global problems. Go to www.ourworldgce.net/currentactivities.htm to take the 2007 survey and review the complete 2006 survey report. — E. Margaret MacFarland, Spring 2007 Editorial Intern