International Relations

International relations touch our lives daily as global markets, the World Wide Web, and foreign travel stimulate a flood of people, products, and ideas across national borders. Today's world is the product of diverse global forces that are historical, political, economic, military, and social in nature. These same forces will shape the world we inhabit in the future and our knowledge of them will determine our place within that world. Studying international relations is a great way for the students of our generation to gain a deeper understanding of global issues. It places a great emphasis on economics, culture, education, and political science and the impact they have on society.

One of the topics that International Relations tends to focus on is immigration. We have been shaped by the immigration that brought us to our current homes, ennobled by our efforts to help others through foreign aid and humanitarian missions, enriched by our exposure to foreign foods, music, dress and language, and tantalized by the prospect of traveling, working, studying, and living abroad. My parents legally immigrated and spent the past 19 years working to become citizens of the United States. Interested in the immigration system and the policies my parents had to go through, I dedicated an entire quarter researching international migration and what can be done to further improve it. While our immigration system needs stark improvement, this class made me abundantly more grateful of the system that helped my family start our new lives and allows thousands of refugees and asylum seekers to find an accepting home, something that many countries do not offer. International relations not only gave me the opportunity to study an international issue that I am very passionate about, but also allowed me to develop and refine my research and analytics skills, which helped me evaluate complex problems and synthesize data to tell compelling stories, and my communication skills, which allowed me to communicate effectively across all mediums from writing to verbal communications.

Below is a small portion of my research and presentation.