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Hello, I'm David Common. I'm the New York correspondent for CBC news, I do radio and TV.
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I'm based normally in New York, though I'm talking to you today from Toronto.
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And I'm a graduate of York University, a double major in Political Science and Mass Communications.
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I live in New York right now.
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I was previously based in Paris, but I've had the pleasure of visiting several dozen countries over the course of my career with CBC.
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And it really is just an excitement every single time to go and meet new people, to have a job that allows me to go and constantly be exposed to something different.
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And it's that international experience that really helped out.
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I can really trace everything back to the exchange I did in Stockholm, Sweden, as really being the thing that initiated it—was the rocket that started me traveling a lot more.
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Up until that point I hadn't been all that far from Toronto.
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I'd gone on the train out to Vancouver, I'd gone south into the U.S. a little bit, but nothing certainly across an ocean.
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And doing that for the first time was really what changed things.
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I then ended up working for CBC in London, went directly from Stockholm, came back, finished my degree in Toronto, but that travel bug hadn't gone anywhere.
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And it's been very valuable.
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In fact, every single time I've looked to change jobs or better my position, it's that international experience which has really given me the leg up.
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They're a great opportunity, they're a great time in your life.
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You may never be able to live abroad somewhere else again.
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And there is a big difference between visiting somewhere and being physically embedded in the population of a place.
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It really is fantastic.
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I would encourage as many students as possible to do it, try to figure out a way to overcome any barriers there might be,
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and it might turn out that those hurdles are actually a lot smaller than you think.