It was the fall semester of 2015 when I decided to go to a discussion panel hosted by professors at my university. The panel focused on the Greek Financial Crisis. I walked into one of the lecture halls in the business building at my school and was instantly surrounded by political science, history and economics majors. Soon professors were spouting out statistics and facts that made no sense to my very humanities-based brain.

I had the first four weeks of my intro to economics class I dropped my freshman year and an opinion piece I had skimmed about the crisis to rely on while I sat there. As GDPs per capita were thrown at me, I could only remember the author of the article suggesting that Germany leave the EU. As the discussion continued, I started to catch on to the gist of the EU's situation. Two of the major powerhouses were the U.K. and Germany. I started to wonder what might happen if these countries did leave the EU seeing as their economies were so strong.

During the question portion of the discussion, my curiosity took over and I rose my hand. When they called on me, I explained my predicament and asked if there was an actual possibility of either country leaving the EU and what these professors thought about it. There was a pause and then laughter irrupted from the professors and students surrounding me. I felt like an idiot.

"Where did you read that?" one of the professors asked skeptically. Every English and journalistic lesson that had taught me to always cite my sources escaped me as I sat there with everyone looking at me like I was nuts. "I can't remember. The New York Times or something? I'm not sure. It was just something I read." It was true, it was the first thing that popped up when I did a Google search only hours before.

He looked at me with his superior, all-knowing gaze and said, "Well, that's never going to happen. That's one of the worst ideas I've ever heard."

Fast forward to March 2016 and Prime Minster David Cameron announces that the United Kingdom would hold a referendum, or national vote, on June 23 deciding if the U.K. would remain a member of the EU or leave. The referendum was aptly nicknamed Brexit. At this point, I was fascinated by the idea. I even wrote a "what if?" piece about it.

When I was writing that article, I took the referendum with a grain of salt, believing—thanks in part to the Greek Financial Crisis discussion—that the people of the United Kingdom would take a "big picture" approach to their overall decision.

But here I am at 12:00 am on June 25 staring at my computer screen, trying to wrap my head around everything that has happened since the U.K. decided in a 52 percent to 48 percent vote that it was leaving the EU. I even stayed up till 3 a.m. June 24 listening to an extended edition of BBC Wold's radio show, "Newsday," as facts started to roll in.

This vote was the largest the U.K. has seen in decades. According to "Newsday," younger voters (18-34) wanted to stay in the EU while the older generations wanted to leave. The broadcast also reported that, based on statistics, a majority of university educated individuals voted to stay with the EU while most individuals without a university education voted to leave. The vote was nearly 50/50, with merely 4 percent more in favor of leaving the EU.

Now that the U.K. has left the EU, the pound, U.K's currency, has dropped to the lowest it has been since the 1980s. It is also taking the euro and global stock markets with it, including the stocks in the United States. Prime Minster Cameron resigned June 24 after he realized his efforts to keep the UK a member of the EU had failed. The Republic of Ireland is currently contemplating the possibility of a reunification with Northern Ireland. A unified Ireland has not existed since 1922, when southern 26 counties of Ireland gained independence. Scotland is now hoping to follow in Ireland's footsteps according to First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, who says Scotland will likely hold a second independence referendum. The first attempt at Scottish independence was merely two years ago with only 55 percent of the country voting to stay.

While there are many overwhelming uncertainties concerning the world as we enter the uncharted territory Brexit has created, the most worrisome information I've found can be summed up in the title of an article published by the Washington Post. The article was titled, "The British are frantically Googling what the E.U. is, hours after voting to leave it."

This catchy header may seem funny, but there's nothing funny about it. Whatever the motivations were for the people in the U.K. when they voted on June 23, this 15-word title proves that these results were created by an uninformed public. A public partially consisting of blue collar workers who thought they were changing their lives for the better when they voted to leave the EU. In reality, they may have made their near and distant futures bleak at best. This decision will not only influence the citizens of today, but its effects will ripple into the generations of tomorrow.

As I look at our own political dramas in the United States and compare them to the U.K., I am stricken with a sickening fear I never knew I could feel. Debates that sparked Brexit are debates taking the forefront of our very own presidential primaries. People who study both politics and economics doubted Brexit would happen about a year ago. The United States populous doubted we would ever have a Clinton v. Trump election come this November, but here we are with both inconceivable realities realized.

We need to look at what has happened in the U.K. and not take it lightly. Britain was a divided and uninformed nation when they made a world altering decision. Today, American citizens stand as equally divided and uninformed. Every vote has an impact. It did in Britain and, come November, it will here. Britain has just stunned the world. If we don't educate ourselves on important issues and unite as a country, we're next. Don't let America be next.