Hartsfeld-Jackson airport, the third largest international-transit commune, is alive with 400,000 commuters storming through the commons

to check their baggage. Among the sea of neutral colors worn by the wayward/homebound crowd my brother emerges from the horizon of the departing escalators in his solid white uniform. He looks world-weary, the eyes of experience contrasting to the silhouette of a twenty-two year old. He has just returned from his seven month tour on board an Indian bound-Maersk cargo vessel, mandatory for his education at USMMA. Later my brother and I confided to each other our lives since his last departure. Mundane stories of my high school experiences paled in comparison to his biographical fables. He spent Christmas in a Spanish orphanage, watched airstrikes over Gaza from an oil rig, was chased from a dock by an anti-American Islamist in Egypt, engaged Somalian pirates in an open ocean firefight, and watched his 280 foot cargo vessel tilt forty degrees during a storm. I was filled with pride for my brother, he escaped our modest, affluent, yet boring suburban routine and had come home with a global understanding even our transient parents couldnt measure up to. His perspective of life and culture was so much vaster than mine. How can I begin to understand the world as he does with his travels behind him and his adult life to look forward to? I want that same wisdom travel imparts; the same understanding my brother obtained just by being abroad in unfamiliar environments. Ive never visited Scotland. My understanding of Scotland derives from stories, photographs, news outlets, books, and whatever bits and pieces of the culture that have made it stateside from natives (mostly fiddle technique, the occasional bottle of whiskey). Pervading every piece of acquired information is emphasis on the cultural identity of Scotland: The old traditions meeting modern globalization creating a hybrid of culture that, from what I can tell, is uniqueheritage and post-modernism in tandem. The thought of studying amidst that cultural white noise is incredibly tantalizing. In foreign universities, I see the potential for a greater global understanding that is impossible to achieve at a domestic university. Its the same reasoning and drive on why I want to study French; so I am able to relate to a completely different culture on the simplest of practices: communication, the basic tool to exchange ideas. Not that my reasoning is exclusively academic, its more sentimental than that. My Breton-philic grandparents were very quick to instill a love of the language at a young age, never speaking a word of English in my prescence, which forced me to learn. Imagine our mutual despondency when I was told I was not allowed to take a language course in school if I was to maintain my performing arts magnet seal. I did take French over the summer but cramming a years worth of material into a five week span is as unrealistic as it is stupid (the credit was valued more than the actual education). I never explored French rhetoric or literature and was only exposed to the works of Caillobette, Proust, and Grappelli on my own inquisitiveness, never taking them to the classroom environment. When I began my Parisian swing band, I found the only places that catered to our sound were the French owned bakery (where we played in afternoons for coffee and tips) and a street corner. Its the unexplored but familiar discipline for me. While I am able to study French at an American university, I dont believe it expand my own role in globalization as much as studying at a Scottish one. The same understanding my brother came home with is what Im seeking from secondary education. Its the same experience

in tandem with a cultural study that Im certain will expand my global understanding to my brothers degree.