Blog 9
The ‘boiling down’ of culture that captures what I learned throughout the semester.
Taking this course has been an interestingly eye opening experience for myself because of many different things. My hopes for this course were to understand and learn more of what different cultures are as well as absorbing the knowledge provided and apply it to aiding in my career. From different styles of language and communication, emotions, and gender roles to how others cultivate values and beliefs and how they change throughout the world. Learning to better understand others will help in breaking through hinderances to connecting with one another.
When I had to answer ten different “who am I?” statements it was me staring at the screen for forty-five minutes trying to figure out what to say. When I finally had some ideas it hade me thinking back to a Health and Wellness psychology class that I took and doing this activity was much easier back then. When I was able to find that activity in an old binder I compared it to what I said about myself and it was interesting to see that some of my statement of who I was had changed in the four years since writing them.
I also thought it was interesting to see how emotions play an important role. In assignment takeaway 3 the study abroad students blog posts and we were to select an interpret them. I focused on the students emotions while she was in a foreign culture. Not only was it fascinating and enlightening to learn the thoughts and feelings of someone who is visiting a place and learning about a new culture that I was interested in going. Certain emotions that the student was feeling related to an Items to Archive for module 7 with self-construal and emotion. In one of the students blogs she demonstrated a socially engaging emotion. During a brief period of learning and trying to understand a new culture the student was sharing emotions of sadness and defeat. She followed with remembering a past episode of happiness and comfort when she saw the snow and how the people acted in Tokyo, Japan which reminded her of her hometown and how they were.
Lastly, when I was able to distinguish my values and understand why I decided that they are mine. The Enculturation activity allowed me to see the differences in the values that I hold and the values of my parents as a whole and as individuals. Growing up the oldest I had many responsibilities and I saw many things that my younger siblings did not because I always observed. In my adult life I took a different approach to how I wanted to live my life and try to stay openminded where they are not. One value difference that I found interesting was one that I hold and my parents do not. I believe that to succeed in life we should move forward without looking back at past mistakes. The difference between myself and my parents when it comes to this is optimism vs. pessimism, where they tend to look for the negative in situations(i.e. looking back at past mistakes) and it hinders them from being able to succeed in certain areas because they look back at mistakes that were made in the past and dwell on them instead of taking control of where they are now and looking for a solution to better their future.