Surely any person going to work outside their country is an expatriate? But no, the word exclusively applies to white people Expats or immigrants? Photograph: Matt Brandon In the lexicon of human migration there are still hierarchical words, created with the purpose of putting white people above everyone else. One of those remnants is the word “expat”. What is an expat? And who is an expat? According to Wikipedia, “an expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country other than that of the person’s upbringing. The word comes from the Latin terms ex (‘out of’) and patria (‘country, fatherland’)”. Defined that way, you should expect that any person going to work outside of his or her country for a period of time would be an expat, regardless of his skin colour or country. But that is not the case in reality; expat is a term reserved exclusively for western white people going to work abroad. Africans are im...
Dear MBA Student, Congrats on beginning your journey. My time at The Stanford Graduate School of Business were 2 of the best years of my life. More than anything, I learned how to think bigger and diversify my friendships. Below are my thoughts as a 2007 Stanford GSB graduate. Let me know what you think. MBAs are risk averse. Business school students are among the smartest and hardest working, but they are some of the most risk averse people in the world. Many of us were driven by fear of not having, not succeeding, and not “making it”. We’re running as hard as we can, but we’re not necessarily sure where we’re running to. Sometimes it’s best to just stop, be still, and listen to your voice within. The greatest risk in the world is not taking any risks at all. (Most MBAs wouldn’t do this with their career unless a lot of other MBAs were doing it too.) MBAs are some of the most underemployed people in the world. Underemployment is the biggest issue facing MBAs and t...