American University Program

American University Program:

For the past two weeks, I was fortunate to attend American University’s pre-college program Community of Scholars. During my time there, I made countless new friends and learned so much about American foreign policy and group decisions. The class that I took is titled Diplomacy and Dictators: U.S. Foreign Policy in an Uncertain World.

In order to better understand and experience the role that our government plays in foreign relations, we participated in a two-week long National Security Council simulation. Much of the course focused on group decision making in emergency situations that require negotiation and quick thinking. The situations that we were faced with ranged from a Chinese nongovernmental nationalist group hacking into naval records of federal defense contractors to determining our stance on adjusting aid to Egypt in light of human rights abuses. While I learned an extraordinary amount about foreign relations, I learned more about working with a group of people, each with different interests.

This is because we simulated the National Security Council realistically—each student was assigned a role, ranging from Vice President to Deputy Secretary of Defense. Based on our positions, we were also members of either the Department of Defense, the White House, the Department of State, and the Senate. Each of these groups had different interests; while the Department of Defense focused on securing our nation, the Department of State sought the diplomatic solution, the White House was concerned with optics and public support, and the Senate with checking the president’s power. Since each member within separate groups shared the same interests, it was relatively easy to come to a consensus within each department. However, since the four separate goals of each department are not all that similar, it was much more difficult to agree on a policy as the National Security Council as a whole.

The first day that we were tasked with deciding on a policy option, everyone talked over each other. With a class of around twenty students, this quickly became loud and overwhelming. And, extremely unproductive. For example, a fifteen minute conversation finally led to everyone agreeing that we should not put troops on the ground in Lebanon. However, right after everyone agreed this, someone yelled to catch everyone’s attention, and proceeded to ask, “what if we put troops on the ground?” Her inquiry was met with a collective sigh, along with a group realization that our method of discussion was more frustrating than effective.

On the second day, we started our discussion out in the same way that we had the day prior, and it was quickly descending into chaos. In a split-second decision, I snatched a pen out of my pencil case, held it up, and stated, “this is the talking pen.” This might sound funny, and it was, but what was even funnier is that it worked. With the help of the talking pen, we became a much more civil group. I realized that the talking pen was only that because we collectively agreed to give it authority, grant it importance, and follow the rule. I realized, along with many others, that respecting the power of the pen allowed us to grant importance to each other’s ideas.

We eventually graduated from depending on the talking pen to have civil discussions, but using it taught us that everyone has a valuable opinion. Knowing that, we were able to move on respecting each other and giving each other the platform to speak. At the same time, we found that speaking is only important if others listen. And listening is important in order to determine what people are willing, and not willing, to give up in negotiation. By the end of our two weeks, we were not trying to avoid criticism of our policy options, but actively asking for it.

Overall, my experience at American University was amazing, and I would return in a heartbeat.