The World in LA; Los Angeles in the World

I recently travelled to New England for a few days to see family and friends and to pick my little brother up from sleep-away camp. While I was there, I decided to visit a few small liberal arts colleges as well since I will be applying to colleges this year. During each information session, the admissions counselor, without fail, would make a point of discussing their school’s robust financial aid program, and for good reason; higher education has historically excluded students from disadvantaged backgrounds. But, particularly after two summer programs where I had numerous peers from all over the world, one group of applicants was flagrantly glossed over in these discussions of financial aid: international students. Perhaps their omission was an unfortunate byproduct of a program tailored to domestic applicants, an intentional decision to save time, or a mere oversight. However, I suspected there were other reasons these sessions did not readily offer up such information. W

This summer, I have met hundreds of students my age from around the world. I now consider as friends citizens of Pakistan and Zimbabwe, Tunisia and the Philippines, Czechoslovakia and Brazil, Sudan and Costa Rica, and countless other countries. The reality of these relationships, in decades past, would have been months or even years of separation, punctuated by perhaps a chance encounter or the occasional reunion. Today, however, I can get in contact with my new friends in seconds. On platforms like Instagram, GroupMe, Snapchat, and WhatsApp, the great distance that has historically characterized intercontinental friendships shrinks to the distance from your hand to your pocket. Thus, we natives of the Internet are separated not by miles and convenience but by our circumstances, our cultures, our surroundings. The shift in the nature of these relationships has resulted in the creation and continuation of long-term friendships, at least for me. But, it has also demanded the use of medi