Cross-Cultural Encounters

Coming to Purdue exposed me to a lot of diverse situations that I had never encountered before. Everyone from the city I lived in before had grown up in the area and is very similar. 6 months ago I thought that my school compared to others in the area was very diverse. I now see how wrong I was because every person at Purdue has a very different story and you would never be able to guess where someone is from or what they did unless you got to know them very well. In my engineering group I met someone that I thought was an international student from Thailand because of the way he spoke and how he talked about being born there, turns out he lived in Indiana before coming to Purdue. Another student I got to know told me she was from China and about three weeks later I learned that her and her family had been living in Tennessee. My understanding of what people consider home and assumptions about where people are from have changed completely, I now see that in order to truly find out where someone is from and know their story, I need to get to know them well in order to full grasp the situation and be able to understand him or her.

Cross-cultural situations

This semester, I have observed and developed respect for the international student population. Many of the students here at Purdue are from the United States, and many are even from the state of indiana. When I think about the transition and adaptation that a given student needs to undergo to 'fit in' and feel at home at school, I think of all of the friends that I have that have left their families, country, culture and even native language to come study here at this prestigious university.

I know how hard it can be for a student even from the Midwest to adjust to college life, and see examples of people around me struggling every day, and when I think of those who are so much further from home and thier families, my respect deepens for those who are so much further from home.

In addition to this, having to perform academically in a language other than one's native language to the level that is expected at Purdue must have been a seemingly insurmountable task at the beginning of the semester. My respect appreciation for these students has grown immensely.

Africa

I do not know much about the engineering situations that were implemented in Africa, but it seems as though they need to take a step back and consider everything, including how they will affect the people native to the land. You cannot just walk into a country, much less a continent, and start ripping it up for its natural resources. An effective and subtle way of utilizing Africa's resources needs to be done in cooperation with the African governments and people in order to arrive to the best solution. The vast majority of African land is very different from the American land,so new innovative solutions have to be created in order to have the same efficiency and prosperity in a different place. This could be why the monetary losses have been so great, the solutions in place in the west are simply not applicable to the African land. The engineering teams need to redo the entire engineering process in order to find the most viable and effective alternate to the current system.

Generalization in Africa

The danger in generalizing Africa is pretty intense as it's an entire continent! And, not only is it a sizable continent in land mass, but it is also one that is full of diversity. From my perspective, there is danger even in generalising people that come from a certain City or High School, as within my High School, there was a very diverse graduating class. On the local level, it shows the danger and inhibits us from really understanding and getting to better know people. On the national and continental level, it is pretty much like putting a blindfold on as to one's perspective and understanding of an entire continent's worth of people and cultures.

Thanksgiving

First of all, Christmas needs to wait its turn. Every year the Christmas decorations are put out in store right after Halloween, and people are always saying, "what about Thanksgiving?" It has become a forgotten holiday, don't get me wrwong though there is not a thing that I don't love about Christmas, except the cold. I just want to know what happened to sitting down with your extended family at an enormous makeshift table and just eating until you can't open your mouth anymore while telling stories about what had happened this year. Now everyone I talk to is headed to Mexico to celebrate Thanksgiving or going out to a nice bar and grill with their immediate family.

Engineering & Africa

Very interesting question - I believe that many of the efforts to create 'solutions' for different areas of the African continent and apply engineering solutions from the 'west' have failed to properly apply the 'problem scoping' principals we've been learning about in our ENGR 131 course. Part of problem scoping is really learning about your stakeholders and the criteria for success before rushing to a solution that is technically sound and logical. In africa, the peoples and cultures seem to be much more diverse and individualised (as communities in relation to eachother), and this has a HUGE impact on what works and doesn't work there - solutions though logical from a technical standpoint can only work if they are catered to the specific populations.

Study Abroad

Well, I do certainly have an interest that has been developing over the past 13 weeks in spending part of my time as an undergraduate participating in a study abroad-type learning experience. When I started at Purdue, I was pretty sure that I would want to do this over in Western Europe, where I'm relatively familiar with the lifestyle and cultures, but I have gradually seen myself growing fonder of heading to one of the areas about which I know very little, including Asia, South America, and Eastern Europe. I feel that this could really be a supplement to a great education 'in the classroom,' because I know just how much you learn by immersion in a foreign culture and language. I am especially interested in tomorrow's discussion, because it often occurs that these things never get the proper attention that they deserve, and thus don't get talked about in the right context, or early enough in an educational career.