Cultural Diversity

Last Tuesday's class consisted of a quest speaker, on the topic of diversity. From my point of view, the speaker really caught me off guard. Not only was it a much differently structured class period then the previous ones, but also in his presentation. Just like Denise had said himself, we all have a general idea of what the word diversity means, but not all of us get to experience what it really is; including myself.

I grew up in a town of just under 1000 people, much like many other Iowans. But not only is my hometown small, my entire county is small.  Clayton County, Iowa's population has been decreasing steadily, since 1982! In 2011, just over 18,000 people lived within it's boundaries  To put that in perspective, the county contains 408,987 acres of land. If you spaced that out, 1 person would live more than 22 square acres away from the next. My county also consisted of only 3 school districts, including my for,er high school, Edgewood-Colesburg. I had the biggest class in school history, with 56 kids, and non of which were any race except Caucasian.

Now, being at Iowa State University, my horizons have opened vastly. Never, outside of my Spanish class for two years, had I heard someone speak another language in a real conversation. At Iowa State, I hear it every day. Many other changes in diversity around me have forced me to adapt to the new surroundings fast. My outlook on diversity before college, practically didn't exist outside of my textbooks or television, because in my everyday life it hadn't mattered before college.

Now that I have been exposed to a wider diversity of people, events, and situations from my time at college, I can see the benefits of having some sort of background in diverse surroundings. Being an engineer, I will be working with numerous groups in my career path, most of which, if not all, containing multiple races/genders and so on. It is important to esatablish some sort of an understanding and familiarization of diversity before your career, to be able to work in a professional manner when the time arises, as well as to be able to use your differences with each other to your advantage. Learn from each other and work together with the many different point of views to accomplish your task at hand.