Conversations at reunion

Zia Daniell Wigder | June 18, 2007, 02:31 PM

I spent this past weekend at my 15th college reunion. Our most successful classmates tend to attend these events: this time we had the lawyer who tried the big Guantanamo case in the Supreme Court to the senior national correspondent from ABC News (much to the dismay of our female classmates, Shonda Rhimes, the creator of Grey’s Anatomy, did not show).

It’s fun to hear their stories about life at the top, but it was also fun to chat with the student workers at reunion to hear their thoughts on the future. They’re definitely still idealistic, but their level of global understanding was truly impressive (and a thousand times more sophisticated than ours was 15 years ago). Compared to when I was there, the majority were assessing their future from a global perspective and planning to study abroad in order to further their careers: over 60 percent of the undergrads now participate in an international exchange program at some point during college.

It’ll likely be several years before students are in leadership positions (some companies notwithstanding), but it was definitely eye-opening to realize what a different perspective they’ll be coming into the workforce with. While many companies are just starting to think seriously about international markets, it seems inevitable that over the next few years, globalization will move quickly up the list of priorities for companies looking to maintain their competitive edge.