The World in LA; Los Angeles in the World

The Global Scholars Program has offered me immense opportunities and greatly influenced my academic career at Poly. From applying to and being accepted into the program last year, to starting to formulate ideas for this academic year nine months ago, to finalizing and presenting my grant proposal, the program has been not only a constant reminder of my responsibility to the world but also a channel through which I can fulfill that responsibility. The weekly Seminar, the Global Scholars events, my peers’ projects insights, and my own work on the grant proposal project have all been crucial for my development as a global thinker, student, and doer. Most of all, perhaps, has been the program’s ability to push me to reframe my own ideals and analyze them within their Western contexts. Both within the program and outside of it, I have taken it upon myself to read and engage with more writers from places outside of the United States, particularly writers from places that have historically no...

In response to stay-at-home orders and other social distancing and business regulations put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic, protests have sprung up across the United States, particularly in places with tighter restrictions on travel and business. Conspiracy theories regarding the legitimacy of the virus and the benefit of these measures have also taken hold. Although civil disobedience has a long history in the United States and the world, these protests diverge from them in a couple key ways. Most of the protests surround perceived attacks on personal liberties like running a business, gathering in large groups, or traveling. Simply put, the protests are fundamentally libertarian. One of the guiding ideas of classical libertarian thought is the non-aggression principle, often shortened to NAP, which says that an individual’s rights extend to the point that they do not harm others; violence in self-defense or response to an earlier aggression, however, is allowed. This fram...

As the coronavirus continues to ravage the world, regions of the United States have begun the process of reopening to varying degrees. Roughly along political lines, some states like Georgia, Arkansas, and Indiana have significantly loosened restrictions on movement and abandoned requirements for personal protective equipment (PPE); meanwhile, other states like California, New York, and New Jersey, places that were hit the hardest, remain in lockdown. Protesters have taken to the streets in many of the latter states, often referencing the president’s rhetoric surrounding the legitimacy of the virus and the information “mainstream media” has dispensed about it. State and local officials face the quagmire of balancing the mitigation efforts already in place with the reality that many citizens have not and will continue to not comply. Although current data suggests containment and eradication was a more viable strategy than initially perceived in the States, many decision makers have...

A little over a week ago, I had the amazing opportunity to reflect on my experience completing a grant proposal through the Global Scholars program. I invited various members of the Poly community, including my fellow Global Scholars in the class of 2020, the rising Global Scholars cohort, and folks from the Poly administration who supported me in my grant proposal work. I was ecstatic to have over forty people tune in to the video call, over which I made my presentation and hosted a brief question-and-answer session. As the last formal part of the grant proposal process, the event was a time for me to reflect on what I had achieved and to share with others what I had learned. I began the presentation by explaining what led me to participate in the Global Scholars program and, specifically, the grant proposal project. I then walked the audience through the presentation that I gave to the grant proposal panelists, who were responsible for making the decision regarding who would...