Joseph Overton is a professor at Kapi‘olani Community College. He’s been working at the college for 23 years. This semester, he’s teaching World Politics, but he’s also taught Middle-East Politics in other semesters.

“I think it’s important that everyone understands what is happening, not just here but around the world,” Overton said.

His class utilizes The New York Times as a textbook to give students basic, generalized knowledge of current events.

“Students need to know about other cultures, need to be able to mix with other cultures, and also need to learn the languages,” Overton said. “It’s very important to know at least another language. … Most companies are multinational.”

Overton also runs the Honda International Center on campus, which deals with incoming international students, helping them to come here and meet people from a country different from their origin. It also supplies students with study abroad programs so they can visit other countries, which Overton has a great passion for helping facilitate.

“The amount of international students that we get is higher than the other community colleges combined,” Overton said. “A lot of students from other countries like to come to KCC because they think it gives a great education.”

To students, Overton had some words of advice.

“Enjoy the time that you’re here at KCC,” Overton said. “Experiment with various courses and find the course that you like, because a lot of the time, the first thing the student signs up for is not what they eventually want to study.”