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بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحِيمِ

During Ramadan in 2007, I was able to meet a student from UM Flint by chance. He came to attend an Community Iftar (breaking of the fast) at the Mosque in Flint, MI and I happened to be there visiting my family that same day. He was not Muslim, he had just come to learn and about one aspect of the Muslim faith, and since he didn’t really know anyone there, I decided to act as host and keep him company during his visit that night.

Of all the things discussed that night these were the points of interest:

• He was a Math and Physics major (with a good GPA)
• He had taken a year off to help with the relief effort in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina
• His sense of adding the most value was digging a well in some remote village

…and that was when it hit me. It seems by living in a place of relative comfort, when compared with many other parts of the world, is something to be ashamed of. So much that he thought that he could be the most useful doing the most mundane tasks that can be attributed to the most basic technology in developing or underdeveloped areas. While those things are “noble”, someone who has a technical skill beyond manual labor should work where they can provide the most return on their time.

It’s just mind boggling. If someone has the capicity to do something great, like improve the irrigation process for farmers in the developing world, then that has a much better impact than helping them dig a new well. On the same token, throwing money at problems doesn’t fix them either, but that’s another story.

I think they should mandate everyone take intro to econ classes so people can learn about absolute and competitive advantages…