Wyatt Smith

ressed

My first full day in Haiti proves eye opening. The hardships, while uncomfortable, are not overwhelming: the showers are frigid, the heat suffocating, the electrical grid undependable, and the public transport limited. But thanks to my Haitian hosts, I have access to a bed, clean water, and occaisionally, an Internet cafe. So it’s downright luxurious when compared to those living in massive refugee tent camps in [...]

Haiti represents a number of concurrent, conflicting realities. On one dimension, its people are proud members of the oldest republic in Latin America, and the first black republic in the world. On another, they are citizens of a failed state, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, and lack a functional government to provide infrastructure, [...]

Like most political science majors at Vanderbilt, I spent many undergraduate hours crafting papers, honing arguments, and developing frameworks for analyzing presidential decisions. For all the work, however, I hardly imagined that a few months out of Vanderbilt, I would have the chance to apply that type of critical thinking to a personal conversation with [...]

A week into Argentina, I am reminded of how edifying it is to be out in the world. There is much to explore in Buenos Aires, the city of European-inspired cobblestone streets, steakhouses, street markets, teeming public life, and tango dancers. Factor in 86-degree summer weather in February, and it’s hard not to find high [...]

Few societal norms are as important to understanding Chinese culture as guanxi, or the potency of one’s family, academic, social, and professional relationships. Guanxi influences everything in China, from negotiating potential business deals to cutting through red tape on the way to securing a housing permit. And in a country with a bureaucracy as large [...]

When interviewing people in my travels, I try to always include a question that probes people’s definitions of their citizenship: “What makes x different from any other sort of nationality?”
It’s an open-ended question for a reason, as the subject’s answer usually reveals much about his or her construction of nationalistic identity. For example, an answer [...]

Throughout my travels, I have sought opportunities to engage with students in different global contexts. Given my commitment to join the Teach for America movement as a high school teacher in my home state of Alabama next year, I am always eager for the chance to learn about other educational systems, pedagogical models, and methods [...]

Few rivalries in American sport compare to the intensity of the Alabama/Auburn divide. Every Alabama native has loyalties in this rivalry matchup, even those like me who attended college out of the state. I’m a Crimson Tide fan, and for nine consecutive years, I have managed to witness the Iron Bowl matchup in person from [...]

After a brief respite in the United States, my traveling fellowship leads me to set out for China, the world’s rising power in the East. Growing up, I always viewed China as a country shrouded in mystery, a “communist power” on the other side of the world. It seemed like a place of immense factories, [...]