When stepping onto a college campus for the first time, I began to dream of all the new possibilities I would be able to explore. Making life-long friendships, trying new extra-curricular activities, and the idea of living on my own all sounded like a dream come true to a small-town farm girl. What I didn’t realize was just how much I would grow into the person I am today because of my intercultural experiences. It was an eye opener to come to MSU, a very diverse school, and interact with so many different students from all over the world. It was through the Honors Program pushing me to become a global citizen that I began to understand how complex one’s identity could be, how we struggle with who we are, and how we grow from what we learn.
While taking Honors FYEX, I began to explore my identity and develop my definition of culture and diversity. I consider culture to be a way of life for a group of people, while diversity expresses how each culture varies from the next. The way of life for someone can include their behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that are passed along by communication, imitation and literature from one generation to the next. Through defining culture, I began to increase my self-awareness as a global citizen. Identity is unique to an individual and being a part of one culture, doesn’t mean I can’t be a part of or understand another. We are all made up of a hundred different aspects such as age, race, ethnicity, and especially language. I can identify some of my values, such as family and cultural traditions, and characterize myself as a Christian, sister, American, and farmer. As I attended different events on campus, I recognized stereotypes I made towards others, especially for students of different race and religion than me. As my self-awareness increased, the more diverse, dynamic and contradicting my personality became.
Growing my knowledge and understanding of global citizenship didn’t happen overnight, it came through dedication and sacrifice of my personal time. I struggled with understanding how to grow my cultural awareness until I joined the Intensive English Program (IEP) as a volunteer to tutor students in English. The main point of the program was to not only have tutors help international students with learning English, but also have all students learn about each other’s cultures and identity. It was through my interactions with students in the program where I learned the importance in being yourself and having an open mindset when learning about other cultures. While at first I over emphasized my experience with American culture, because I thought the students wanted to become “American”, the students kindly showed me a whole different world. I discovered how many other cultures hold similar important values to my own, such as traditions and religion, but how we maintained and celebrated these values differed.
Through extended second language practice by taking courses in American Sign Language (ASL), I also began to understand the power behind learning a second language. I emphasized with my students struggle to learn grammar and writing, while I struggled with facial expression and body language in class, but I could never imagine being in a completely different culture with only my ASL knowledge to communicate with others. Yet, not only is language a way to communicate, it allows us access to different parts of society and cultures. Some Americans feel that English should be the national language that everyone is required to speak, eliminating the need for interpreters and force others to conform to their version of US society. However, if that becomes such, a large part of someone’s identity relating to their language may be lost and cause strain on an individual. The question that then remains is if the world, an individual’s country, and their family, all say they must learn English to be accepted into a higher class of society, how can one still find acceptance from others through their own language and culture.
The answer to that question and others I have thought about aren’t easily solved but growing my knowledge and understanding of differences between culture and language has been crucial to becoming a global citizen. It was after taking Honors Seminar: Language, that I could really judge just how much my cultural awareness has grown. The main way I was able to showcase my growth was through a case study I did revolving around why everyone should strive to be a global citizen. I wanted to know how coming from a very diverse background has impacted someone’s cultural awareness compared to my own and that maybe if everyone added being a global citizen to their identity, we could have solidarity in the world. While conducting the interview for my case study, I focused my questions too much on how it related to American culture, rather than how cultures varied. After realizing this, I changed my strategy when asking my language partners questions. I made sure they fully answered the question before I added my own input as sometimes they would then revolve their answer around mine, not allowing me to know about the bigger differences in our beliefs.
Becoming a global citizen isn’t just about being able to define diversity for an interview. It’s about the cycle of learning, struggling, and continuing to grow our understanding of culture and identity. Just because I feel like I’ve become a global citizen, doesn’t mean I will stop trying to seek out other intercultural experiences to further my knowledge. Having an open mind and the willingness to learn about another’s culture are key to developing a global citizenship mindset. My definitions of culture and language will continue to expand and grow with every time I encounter a new life experience that differs from my own, I also still hope that one day I will be blessed with the amazing opportunity to study abroad and immerse myself in another culture, truly experiencing being an international learner.