{"id":223,"date":"2026-10-01T13:42:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T17:42:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/stephenson-institute\/?p=223"},"modified":"2026-10-01T14:09:38","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T18:09:38","slug":"why-ai-and-global-debates-get-heated-wabash-students-get-a-european-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/stephenson-institute\/2026\/10\/01\/why-ai-and-global-debates-get-heated-wabash-students-get-a-european-perspective\/","title":{"rendered":"Why AI and Global Debates Get Heated: Wabash Students Get a European Perspective"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Scotty (first from left) and Will (third from left) with new friends in Vienna.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A couple weeks into their dream internship\u2014working at an European think tank\u2014Will Edwards ’28 and Scotty Semler ’28 hit a snag. In late May, cities across the continent began to exceed 90\u00b0F, at a time of the year when typical highs are around 70\u00b0F\u2014where many of these areas do not routinely have air conditioning. Their summer home of Vienna, Austria was no exception, and neither was their overheating apartment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was pretty bad for like a week and a half or two weeks,\u201d Scotty explains. \u201cThank goodness there was one fan right in the apartment\u2014and we just had to buy another one.\u201d At one point, the Austrian Economics Center (AEC), which hosted the internship, arranged for Will and Scotty to travel for a couple of days to cool off over the weekend at a lake near Salzburg.<\/p>\n

They persevered through the heat, staying on for another two months, but by the end, the heat wave had become just a footnote. \u201cIt was such a unique experience, living on your own in a different country,\u201d Will reports. \u201cIt was the best time in my life\u2026I was used to the heat playing lacrosse over the summer,\u201d says the Carmel native.<\/p>\n

As they adjusted to European life in slightly more challenging conditions than expected, Will and Scotty still reported to work in central Vienna at the AEC each day, learning and assisting with research on a variety of economic issues. \u201cWe spent a lot of time on the taxes and restrictions that the U.S. puts on AI [companies] and how that impacts Europe,\u201d Will explains. European businesses are sometimes forced to use Chinese models that are \u201cmonths behind American models.\u201d They also worked on an index comparing the economic freedom of various European countries, and assisted with a research project comparing Hayek and Fukuyama.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people [at AEC] are fantastic, very helpful, in so many different ways,\u201d says Scotty, and \u201cthey helped me with my German, too.\u201d A German minor, he is so enthusiastic about Austria that he is even returning to the country after only a month-long break, this time in a study abroad program this fall in Salzburg.<\/p>\n

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Andres Ornelas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Another Wabash student sponsored by the Stephenson Institute also spent time in Europe later in the summer, this time with less of a heat wave. About a four hour train ride from Vienna, Andres Ornelas \u201828 attended a nearly three-week-long program run by The Fund for American Studies in Prague. There an international cohort from over a dozen nationalities together \u201cexplores fundamental issues related to political philosophy, political economy, and conflict management.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Ornelas, from Brownsville, Texas, it was his first time in Europe\u2014and a broadening experience in so many ways. \u201cIt was eye opening\u2026.like a range of people. There were a lot of people from Ukraine,\u201d learning firsthand with people from literal war zones. While the program covered a range of topics, Ornelas, who is considering a military career, was particularly engaged by a simulation for the EU that analyzes Russian and Chinese attacks, including walking the students through a simulated invasion of Taiwan. The program\u2019s open nature did not shy away from controversial questions, with one talk on immigration by a UK politician prompting a few students to walk out. \u201cI had a lot of tough conversations with a lot of different people that really did expand my understanding,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Ornelas\u2019s roommate was from Kosovo, from whom he learned about Kosovo’s deep admiration for the United States, including their giant statue of Bill Clinton and the \u201cThank you USA\u201d song.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could not stop talking about Wabash to everybody over there,\u201d he says, showing how his time was a genuine two-way exchange of ideas and experiences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple weeks into their dream internship\u2014working at an European think tank\u2014Will Edwards ’28 and Scotty Semler ’28 hit a snag. In late May, cities across the continent began to exceed 90\u00b0F, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":203,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"iawp_total_views":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internships"],"acf":[],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/stephenson-institute\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/49\/2026\/09\/vienna-1024x576.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/stephenson-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/stephenson-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/stephenson-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/stephenson-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/203"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/stephenson-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/stephenson-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":229,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/stephenson-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions\/229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/stephenson-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/stephenson-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/stephenson-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}