As an immigrant to USA in my teens in mid-2000s, one of the striking and underappreciated things about Americans (those that are born in USA) as well as the entire culture of America embodies a sort of a liberating spirit that resonates everywhere. Once you graduate high-school, the world is yours. The transition is quite remarkable and college students have a tremendous amount of ambition. I hated highschool because it was too easy (even AP courses), but loved college. There is also a deep disdain for hierarchical structure in USA and it is one of the most unique aspects that I don't see anywhere else. It gets developed in college years and then continues onwards to the professional world. If we have a spectrum from "Individualism" to "Hierarchical", we can draw USA on one end and may be Japan on the other. Germany would fall in the middle. I don't think international students like myself bring anything new, but we learn a lot from Americans and then obtain citizenship. These observations were at the center of my conscience as I was growing up into adulthood.