Changes in Latitude :: Personal Narrative Essays

Changes in Latitude I was nominated to go to Singapore based on my achievements in the science fair. However, looking back on my recent experience in Singapore, it was the people, and not the science, that really stick in my memory. I think that's just as well. Most of the science will be yesterday's news by the time I go to college anyway. This was my first opportunity for international travel, and certainly, Singapore is about as far away as it is possible to travel from Pennsylvania. Singapore is also far away from home in its culture and climate. Traveling there opened my eyes to new ideas, values, and attitudes. The talks at the festival were great. One of the highlights of the festival for me was the spirited and humorous talk given by the Australian scientist / radio show host. I also learned a lot of new information about the human genome project, which seemed to be a prime interest of APEC's scientific community, and certainly an important project for demonstrating cooperation. Several distinguished scientists talked to us about their work with HUGO and their role in deciphering the genetic code of the human species. In addition to this exposure to scientific research in the region, I learned something about the education system of Singapore. It is, I found, somewhat different than ours. They swap the last two years of high school for something called junior college. These students are looked on with admiration by the younger students, and the adults from Singapore seem to entrust all leadership responsibilities to them, rather than the younger students. These junior college students from Singapore were also favored over students of the same age from other countries. This was upsetting to some. For example, I know one junior college-aged boy in my group who was not from Singapore complained of this. I understand, however, that this preference for the junior college students from Singapore reflects their culture's reverence for elders. Besides learning something about the education in Singapore, I had the opportunity to discuss international careers with other attendees of APEC. I think that the biggest advantage of thinking "internationally" is that you benefit from having minds from all over the globe help you solve scientific problems. And from a business perspective, you can make use of a global market to sell to a wider variety of customers.