Last week, Jordan was continuing his love affair with the UAE that started in his high school days. This week, he reports the new respect he’s gaining on cultural diversities. After all, that is a big part of what BE’s See the World, BE the Future program is all about.
“Group of exchange students, all from different places and ethnicities. A good look into the diversity of my new school, even outside the classroom.”
Being a home-based student at Howard University, an HBCU, Jordan had become accustomed to a campus full of students who looked like him, with similar backgrounds and cultural experiences. Throughout his formal education, he’s known diversity with the student body. This is even in in his advance placement classes in high school; in which there was still a comfortable expectation. Now that the third week of his Study Abroad ISEP Direct! program has kicked in, he is forced to brace himself for the experience of a new kind of culture shock.
It was one thing for Jordan to be different from his fellow students, but it was a completely new experience for all of them to be so different from each other. His classmates hail from places like Syria, Saudi Arabia, Europe and even Jordan—which the Jordanians found his name, Jordan, funny because he was an exchange student from the America.
“[This is] a numbers look into the diversity of the UAE. This is something that is definitely
felt during classes and on campus events.”
In Jordan’s International Marketing class, the students were placed in groups for a negotiation exercise. His group, two Americans, a Korean student, and a variation of Middle Eastern students, represented a company faced with dilemmas such as worker’s wages and selling unhealthy products to consumers. It didn’t take long for him to see that the thought processes were different for each student coming from their respective corners of the world. Some were less concerned about the workers than others. Some disregarded the health and well-being of the consumers of their company’s fictitious product. It was amazing for him to see how differently some students processed and handled issues than himself. He says “It is so interesting to [have] first-hand experience [on] how cultures differ, trying to work [together] to arrive at some type of middle ground in communication.”
“Our first exchange meeting. Introducing ourselves and learning everyone’s diverse backgrounds and country of origin.”
Not only did Jordan find this interesting, to be around such a diverse group, negotiating, working with so many different thought processes and characters (most likely stemming from their own culture and background), but it was fun and exciting for him.
“A picture of graduation that I got from my University [American University of Sharjah]. While it doesn’t seem too diverse at first glance; these studentsare from so many different countries with so many different ethnicities.”
Make sure to check back in next week to read about Jordan’s latest experiences and enlightenments!
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