Flat Competition "When I was growing up in Minneapolis, my parents always said, ‘Tom, finish your dinner. There are people starving in China and India.' Today I tell my girls, ‘Finish your homework, because people in China and India are starving for your jobs.' And in a flat world, they can have them, because there's no such thing as an American job anymore." Thomas Friedman.

In his book, The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman describes the unplanned cascade of technological and social shifts that effectively leveled the economic world, and "accidentally made Beijing, Bangalore, and Bethesda next-door neighbors." The video of Thomas Friedman's lecture at MIT discussing the flat world is available at http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/266 . If you want to be prepared to compete in a flat world you must watch this video and answer the following questions:

• Do you agree or disagree with Friedman's assessment that the world is flat?

• What are the potential impacts of a flat world for a student performing a job search?

• What can students do to prepare themselves for competing in a flat world?