Wise Monkey News is here to provide young people an opportunity to discuss the issues that affect their lives. We hope that, through your participation, this website serves as a forum for the development, exchange, and expression of ideas that will prepare us to assume our positions as the leaders of tomorrow's world. Have something to say?

Learning with an edge

by: Melanie Gangle - printed on 04-25-2001

International study abroad experiences present great opportunities for self-growth. When you study abroad, you challenge your cultural assumptions. When you’re communicating in a new language, eating new foods, and learning a new set of cultural expectations, you can’t help but learn new things about your host culture, about your own culture, and about yourself. Cultures, although they may be different, are also universal; you’ll find culture everywhere.

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Illegal immigrants gain priority admissions to California universities

by: Jaime Denning - printed on 03-06-2002

You live in New York. Your dad, his dad and his grandfather all attended the University of California at Berkeley. Family tradition and desire push you to apply to the university. You harass the mailman daily, waiting for your acceptance letter. Finally it comes and you run triumphantly with it into the kitchen where your step-mom is making cookies. You tear open the creamy cardstock envelope and find "Dear Joe, We regretfully inform you.

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Monologues Increase Awareness

by: Jamie Worley - printed on 09-25-2002

The Vagina Monologues. The first time I heard the title to this play, I had to suppress a giggle. I looked around at my classmates, trying to gauge how I should react, all the time rolling the word off my tongue. Vaaagggiiinnnaaa …

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September 11th in Austria

by: Jared Frye - printed on 09-11-2002

September 11th started out the same as any other Monday. I woke up and went to classes. I was still getting used to living in Salzburg, Austria - half a world away from where I was born. I was still adjusting to the language and culture.

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Struggles in the European Union - Spain

by: Mono Vergara - printed on 02-20-2002

Spain: Integration and Isolation

One of the Spanish governments biggest concerns is that people in Spain lack interest in their membership in the European Union. The euro was adopted in Spain last January and will be fully adopted at the end of February, and it seems to be one of the only signs and reminders that Spain belongs to the EU. Another important and often ignored fact is that the current president of the EU is Spanish - President Aznar acts as the head of the European government.

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Dear Chairman Arafat and Prime Minister Barak,

by: Hank Smith - printed on 11-03-2000

122 people dead…over 2,000 injured…three weeks. By the time achieve any peace whatsoever is robbing people of their hope. What is the point of haggling over minute details of resolutions that will never lead to permanent peace when, in the meantime, people are dying? You are, as U.S. Ambassador Martin Indyk put it, “condemned to live together.” Instead, you are dying together.

There are clear differences, even uninfringeable differences, between your two cultures.

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