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Dear graduates, And by graduates, I do not only mean those walking across a stage this month in caps and gowns. I mean every student standing at the edge of a next chapter. The high school senior leaving the familiar architecture of school and stepping into college. The college student entering a job market that…

I flew back to the United States from India last night and was reminded, yet again, that some of us spend our lives returning to places that both know us and misread us. Every time I go back to India, my voice arrives before I do. Someone hears the American edges in my accent and…

I have been traveling across India, visiting high schools and speaking with students about their future readiness. Standing in rooms full of young people, I have been trying to help them make sense of a world adults keep describing as full of opportunity, even as the rules of opportunity are changing beneath their feet. Beneath…

The world is addicted to visible conflict. Missiles, borders, retaliation, brinkmanship, the theater of escalation. These are the things that dominate headlines because they are dramatic, legible, and easy to narrate. They allow nations to perform strength in public. While everyone is watching the obvious contests, another one is unfolding with far less spectacle and, I suspect,…

I watched Artemis II with the kind of awe that makes you briefly forget your age. For a few minutes, I was no longer a grownup buried in deadlines, flights, WhatsApp messages, and the low-grade noise of the world. I was just a little kid staring at the moon again, pulled back into that old…

 “Paper or plastic?” It is one of those phrases we hear so often that it barely registers anymore. It belongs to the script of modern life, along with “credit or debit,” “hot or iced,” and the polite, half-awake choreography of strangers moving each other along. We say our part. They say theirs. Everyone keeps it moving.…

It took me longer than it should have to get to the University of Mississippi. Forty-eight states came and went before it. Mississippi stayed somewhere on the list, not avoided, just never urgent enough to move to the top. Until last week, when I finally arrived at Ole Miss for their International Education Week. State number forty-nine.…

Night had already settled over the court of Hastinapur when the dice were brought forward. The hall was full. Princes, elders, warriors, and courtiers gathered beneath the glow of torchlight, watching what appeared at first to be little more than a royal pastime. Dice games were not unusual among kings. Yet that evening carried a…

There were only four students in the room, and none of them were allowed to speak English. The rule seemed simple enough until the first sentence collapsed halfway through. It was a 200-Level Chinese course, still early enough in the journey that confidence had not yet arrived. The instructor enforced the rule without exception: every question, every…

SNAP! Arms lift. Phones tilt toward skylines, temples, street corners. A moment is captured before it has even been fully experienced. Proof we were there. You don’t actually hear the sound anymore. Most phone cameras are silent now. But the reflex is everywhere. Over the past eight months, I have moved through four continents and eighteen countries. Airports, taxis, colorful…

Each year, I joke that I’m celebrating the anniversary of my 25th birthday. On Tuesday, it was the 28th anniversary — and I chose to mark it on the Great Wall of China. The wind was colder than I had dressed for. It came rushing over the mountains and across the exposed stone, slipping through the layers…

In the span of a few weeks, I’ve moved through three very different spaces in three different countries. India, where I visited GIFT City, hosted Junction91, and spent time on campuses experimenting with new models of global engagement and transnational education. At AIEA in Washington D.C., where international educators were navigating visa instability, political volatility, and a…

“Resistance is futile.” If you’re a Star Trek: The Next Generation fan like me, you’ll recognize this famous catchphrase, spoken by the Borg, a collective that forcibly assimilates species into their hive mind. It signifies the perceived hopelessness of opposing an overwhelming force, representing a “surrender or be destroyed” ultimatum. It is one of the most chilling lines in…

I didn’t watch the Super Bowl halftime show. Before you say, “So what’s the big deal?”, let me offer some context, especially if you’re not an American football fan or if you’re reading this from outside the United States. Each year, the Super Bowl halftime show functions as more than entertainment. It has become one…

Am I moving fast or am I moving right?  Lately, I find myself asking this question over and over. With my life as much as with my business.   For a long time, I believed that doing well - at work, in life, in the choices that mattered - meant keeping pace. Not recklessly, but…