We Must Go and See

When I started the World Affairs Club in ninth grade, the idea was pretty simple: find curious people, bring more of the world into Langley, and see where it went. No badges. No prerequisites. You definitely do not need to know everything about foreign policy. Just show up curious. Since then, we’ve heard directly from diplomats and intelligence officers, dropped into the United Nations over Zoom, explored embassies, entered competitions, built projects, and found ourselves interested in things we probably would never have discovered on our own. That, more than anything, is the club. As Jacques Cousteau put it, “We must go and see.”

Now, as my time at Langley starts to run out, I’m less interested in looking back than in what happens next. The people will change. The places we explore will change. I hope even the club changes. But the first principle should stay the same: be curious enough to go looking. The world is bigger, stranger, more complicated—and usually more human—than it looks from a classroom. Go see some of it. Then come back and bring someone else with you.

Ryan Minton ’27
Founder, Langley World Affairs Club