"It's the economy, stupid"

Currently reading: 'Globalization and Its Discontents' by Joseph E. Stiglitz

To become a learned economist, it's important to be up to date with world news, increasing one's knowledge of economics, globalization, and social trends and phenomenons from different perspectives. For this reason, I am reading one of the currently best selling non-fiction books hitting all major bookstores. I want to be more informed and learned about international affairs, with the purpose of avoiding stuff happening, such as this: politics and policies harmlessly, ignorantly, and caressly tossed before me.

Come to think of it, the world is becoming acutely aware of how small it actually is (think of Thomas Friedman's 'The World Is Flat'). We are virtually connected to anyone else who has access to the Internet. Chinese is becoming one of the most popular foreign languages taken by college students. Steven Levitt helped gained worldwide attention and interest in cconomics with his thought-provoking book (Levitt has his own 'Freakonomics Blog' featured on the New York Times website). Even before the Freaknomics craze, Malcolm Gladwell, staff writer for The New Yorker (who I personally admire), wrote about the fascinating relation between people and phenomenons. Social phenomenons, that is. It is the one distinct and generous umbrella under which many categories of lifestyle and society lie. Malcolm Gladwell, coming from a literary magazine background, discussed this beautifully in his first novel, 'The Tipping Point', and later topped it off with his second novel titled book, 'Blink'. Some of the interesting anecdotes that Gladwell uses to illustrate his main thesis are related to pyschology, the third domain which connects society with the individual. Speaking of which, pyschology has also become a popular degree.

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Once I started college, my biggest fear, oddly enough, was fear of failure. I hesitatd to declare the I was going to major in Economics. I avoided saying a solid, 'Yes' when people asked whether that was my intended major. Why? For a long time, I saw it as a stepping stone into the financial world, of which I had very little idea of. Or so I thought. I kidded myself a lot, not really exploring the subject first-handed. Today, I have discovered that this is not at all true! Over the summer, I have been entertaining the idea of going into academia. My ambition is to work at a global institution such as the World Bank, or an NGO or think tank for which I share the same values, or possibly work as a top advisor. It would also be nice to get some work experience in the world of journalism, either as a freelance writer, or contributor for some featured column. Any of these are good ideas or goals to have, but it's equally important to know what is achievable. And college helped me to expand my horizons; this is one of the reasons why I know I hadn't disappointed myself, not from the very beginning.