“Once you get out there in the world, you will realize the news feeds are different from what you experience. The world is not so bad when you get out there,” Mary Eisenhower, granddaughter of the late United States president Dwight D. Eisenhower, said.

This statement exemplifies her intention in meeting with San Diego State’s University Student Chapter of People to People on Monday.

Eisenhower, the president and CEO of People to People International, applauded students on debuting the first university chapter on the West Coast.

The SDSU chapter, which started last September, focuses on bringing peace through understanding despite the segregation created by international borders and long-established prejudices.

During Monday’s meeting the chapter mentioned the importance of educating people about issues, such as the “one-sided solution” of the Kony 2012 video. The SDSU chapter hopes to send students to Uganda to provide direct understanding by living and seeing the situation as it is rather than how it is portrayed.

Eisenhower conversed with students about travel experiences, insightful anecdotes, future plans for study abroad programs and common-thread issues among different cultures. This inspired the students launching the new chapter and helped them look forward to experiencing faraway destinations.

“The farther you get into traveling, the harder it will be to get out,” Eisenhower said. “It is a wonderful world out there and you will see that as soon as you experience it.”