After taking this class, I’ve found that I am more culturally competent than before. I can have simple conversations about education and government from different cultures or countries like France, Korea, and China. I can also compare their systems to the ones I am familiar with. I can identify stereotypes of other cultures, like Canadian niceness […]
Read MoreReading about nonverbal gestures, all I could think about are the differences in nonverbal communication across different social and generational lines. When I’m with friends, I can stare at them from across the room making a strange face to get their attention. I can just hold the hand of the friend next to me at […]
Read MoreA few stereotypes about Americans include being loud, stupid, and eating a lot of junk food. These are all learned behaviors and a product of a wide variety of circumstances. Take the junk food as an example. Fast food came around as a quick alternative to sit-in dining or cooking your own meals. The people […]
Read MoreWith all these perspectives, the thing I’m learning most is how relative it all is. Everyone has a different study abroad experience and a different idea of what a “full” experience really means, so there’s no real way to say who “passed” or “failed” the experience. Even “culture” itself is relative! There are so many […]
Read MoreI found it interesting how a single experience could be broken down into the three different interpretations. It seems to me that all these students did was study abroad, and the attitude that they brought with them determined which “approach” they took. In the “learning through experience” paradigm, there is a self-conflicting elitist undertone that states that some […]
Read MoreI didn’t expect our first class to tackle such large but essential questions about cultural competence and literacy. I have always known that my views would be limited by my privilege and my lack of context for any other culture but my own. I have never left my country, or barely even my own state! […]
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