Assignment 5 Takeaway: I believe the purpose for Assignment 5 was to pick a chapter in the textbook, pick a country you’d like to visit, and then find a journal article that combines both the topic of your paper with the country. For my paper I chose Northern Iraq and talked about psychological disorders. This assignment was very insightful and I found myself connecting bits and pieces of information from other courses I am taking, with this course. It felt great to be able to pull the knowledge that I learned about adolescents and how they handle the effects of stress and connect that to how the females that had undergone female genital mutilation (FGM)were effected by the stress of what they endured. Being able to make this connection allowed me to theorize that because the participants that had undergone FGM seemed to internalize their feelings (like some adolescents), it may have been a contributing factor as to why they have symptoms of depression and anxiety. In addition, in a Sociology course that I had taken a few semesters ago, FGM was one of the topics discussed and it was interesting to be informed about it in the Cross-Cultural course as well. The Cross-Cultural course approached the topic in a more psychological way and discussed why FGM may be occurring in certain areas rather than others. 

Assignment 3 Takeaway: Assignment 3 was fairly interesting. I’ve never had an assignment like this and it was pretty insightful. Looking at the different blogs done by various students was fun! The blog that I viewed specifically was set in Tokyo, Japan, a country I have always wanted to visit because Japanese culture is so intriguing. From the photos that I viewed in the blog, the architecture in Japan is incredible and the fact that it is different than anything else I have ever seen motivates me to want to learn more about their culture and hopefully visit that location some day. The blog that I viewed was highly informative and made me feel like I had gone on an adventure to Tokyo myself! The author of the blog seemed like she had learned a lot from attending a university in Japan. It seemed to have had a positive impact on her life and has motivated her to travel the world more. Also, the more I scrolled through the blog, the more of an appreciation the author seemed to have gained for the culture and she seemed grateful to have the privilege of being able to travel to another country. Honestly, I gained more of an appreciation for that culture as well. Even though I do not know all of their values and customs, I still admire the Japanese culture and am fairly curious to learn more.

Assignment 1 Takeaway: Assignment 1 required me to look within myself and I found that I am really open minded when it comes to people. I believe that everyone has the right to be themselves and express themselves in a respectful manner. I also believe that it is important to acknowledge someone’s cultural differences and be respectful upon interacting with them. For example, if I knew that going to shake someone’s hand was considered inappropriate to his or her culture, I would not try to shake that person’s hand as a greeting. As I was completing the assignment, I noticed that I didn’t fall under just one stage of intercultural sensitivity and that made it a bit difficult. For every argument as to why I found myself identifying with the Minimization of Difference stage, I wanted to counter it with why I identified with another stage such as Acceptance of Difference. Overall, this assignment required for me to think deeply about how I interact with people in my everyday life and it also showed me the different perspectives that people may have about other cultures. This first assignment was an eye opener for me and it has sparked my interest in learning more about cross-cultural psychology.