Conversations About Diversity

Being a student at Babson makes conversations about diversity really important. In a college where more than 30% of students are international, we have to be aware of how to benefit ourselves from that diversity. I resonate completely with what Julien Bourrelle claims in his Ted Talk. For us to be able to benefit from diversity, we need to adapt and understand others, otherwise misunderstandings will certainly cause conflicts. Being a Brazilian in an american school causes me to be really caution when taking specific action towards someone from a different culture. For example, Brazilians are known for their warmth and affection. I tend to hug every new person I meet. However, I need to be careful when introducing myself to Americans and Asians, for example, which are known for their personal space and would certainly feel uncomfortable in hugging a random stranger they just met. If I do not take into consideration other people’s culture when meeting them, I would have caused dozens of people to feel uncomfortable in their first month on college. …show more content…
My FME group is composed by six people including myself. There are three women: two with South America background and one with Asian background, and three men: one Argentinian, one from Miami, and me, from Brazil. Due to our differences, we come up to extremely different solutions to different situations, which causes us to solve problems in a much faster way. Because of our different cultures, we are able to work together and find the best solution. However, there are problems that may happen due to diversity, and if we do not explain to each other our cultural differences, conflicts will surely show up during the