It’s a Small World
About the author: Daniel Huang ’20 is a TEC Undergraduate Intern at Bruegel in Brussels, Belgium. Daniel is currently a Stanford undergraduate majoring in economics.
As I was wandering around a quaint village in the German countryside, I saw a person wearing a red t-shirt. Something about the shade of red stuck out to me, and as I glanced back once more, I realized it was a shade of red I hadn’t seen in a long time: it was Stanford Cardinal. In fact, much to my surprise, I could faintly make out faded, white letters spelling the name Stanford. Either the universe was playing tricks on my vision or this was a really strange coincidence.
For my first weekend in Brussels, I took a 23 hour bus ride to visit Berlin. My bus left Brussels in the wee hours of Saturday morning and then deposited me at an airport in western Germany, where I had a 13-hour layover. I hadn’t planned anything, so I hopped on the first departing train and got a taste of the stereotypically punctual and efficient German public transit system. I ended up in Brühl, a sleepy village on the edge of a nature reserve. Without much direction, I started wandering around until I ran into the guy wearing a Stanford shirt.
As luck would have it, he not only spoke English, but was also a rising junior who was doing an FSI internship in Cologne, Germany. Perhaps the last thing I had expected was to meet a fellow student in Brühl, but as we were walking through secluded forest talking about courses and majors, I felt like I was back inside the Stanford bubble. It turns out that we were both working at economics think tanks, so we compared our experiences and also talked about living abroad. Later, we went to a nearby city to eat a pretzel, sit by the Rhine, and have dinner.
This chance encounter pushed me to think more deeply about my preferences for my ideal career and lifestyle. Being exposed to a completely different work environment and culture in Brussels (which is, albeit, a cosmopolitan city) had already pushed me to start thinking about these topics, but hearing the experiences of a fellow student from a similar background who has been abroad for a longer period of time has helped me identify and articulate what matters to me.
One of the underappreciated strengths of FSI’s summer internship program is the sheer number of students who have the opportunity to work abroad every summer. Apart from meeting the guy in Brühl, I work with two other interns from Stanford at my think tank in Brussels and also know people who have interned abroad in previous years. Living and working in a foreign country means being confronted with differences in lifestyle and culture and leaves a strong impression. I am interested in not only hearing about other people’s experiences, but also using their thoughts to inform my own opinions. In this way, my summer internship gives me the opportunity to have meaningful exchanges with peers who have also lived abroad.
