Introduction
Have you noticed the world around us has changed in terms of information dissemination? Information about any topic in the world can be had with the click of a mouse. Most of the time, the news and information aren’t only in the English language anymore. These days, you can get your news in French, Spanish, Japanese… the choice of news language is endless. This is why I have always believed that learning languages are the key to be able to access a wealth of information about the world.
This is because different countries learn different things about the world we move in, but since we do not speak other languages, we are hindered from accessing that information. I also know that by traveling, I will be able to learn more about the world around me, or a world, in particular, that is of interest to me. Having a keen interest in everything French, I decided to study French for a travel class.
I knew that if I ever found myself in France, I would be able to understand the world as the French saw it because I could understand what they were saying. I would say that learning French is a marked improvement for me because I never thought that I could become a multilingual person.
Learning French and further possibilities
Armed with the knowledge of the French language and history, I fully intend to travel to France one day. Hence all the time that I spent learning everything that I could about French culture, their language, including any facts and trivia about France that I could get my hands on. I fully intend to make my future trip to France wanted to make sure that I was well armed just in case I had to live in Europe and would have to communicate with the Frenchmen regularly.
I believe that I was able to improve my proficiency in foreign languages this semester because of my classes which encouraged me to learn something new all the time. The proof of this newly gained knowledge and expertise can be seen in the results of the intensive writing class that I took alongside French for my travel class. I used my intensive writing class lessons to further improve my written French skills. Something which has paid off immensely for me as I am now able to exchange emails in French with some French people I met online.
My improved language skill allowed me the opportunity and confidence to mingle with our French students and speak to them in their native tongue. In the process, I made new friends who even offered to help me further improve my grasp of French.
By taking the French language classes along with art classes, I found that I was able to combine my knowledge within the 2 areas of French culture to come up with an even deeper understanding of Europe as a cultural society. In a sense, I feel like I was able to become a part of their world because I learned new things about them as a socio-culturally advanced nation.
Having tweaked my interest and excited me about learning more about France as a nation and as a people, I threw myself totally into my French culture and art history classes this semester. I learned that even though we all come from varied cultures, there are always certain areas where our cultures and traditions will manage to intersect, there will always be a point of common interest so to speak. Which can cause 2 highly different cultures to find a common ground to bond over.
The Middle East is a fast-evolving area of the world. The protests that are ongoing across our part of the globe showed me how interconnected we all are. We are not an island unto ourselves, neither can we solve our social problems alone. Social networks have made our world a very small place and information can now be instantly shared with the rest of the world at the click of a send button. However, with that ease of information sharing also comes the ease of misinformation sharing. This is why these social networks must act responsibly in sharing information across the world. Events around us have a way of affecting other nations as well. These days, all current events have a trickle-down effect which can either be a good or bad thing.
I have now learned to become more observant of the things happening around me. I am no longer a blind follower who will accept things are they are given to me. I have come to realize that I have the human right to ask questions and demand answers from my leaders. I have come to realize that we are all global people now. What we do in the Middle East will affect the rest of the world in one way or another. We are no longer the isolated nation we once thought we were. We now live in a symbiotic world that requires us all to keep an open and analytical mind regarding national and international issues because those issues, also involve us.
That said, I have made a new self-discovery relating to that topic I suddenly found myself becoming a highly observant person who seemed to have developed intercultural sensitivity overnight. All of a sudden, I have come to question everything I know about how we treat the members of other races. Why do we do it? What do we get out of it? Isn’t there another way of getting our message across to them without violence?
It also came to my attention that the other students in my class also seemed to have developed their sensitivity as well. One American classmate of mine in particular drew my attention because when I first met him, he was slightly standoffish and uncaring about the world around him. But after this semester, my opinion of him has changed. He has become more active in learning about world culture and events. He has even displayed a concern regarding the reasons why certain events are happening in the Middle East and other areas of the world.
Being an international student, I have been allowed to immerse myself in various cultures and social settings while learning about how these kinds of information can affect me as a person. It has led me to question what I used to hold as an unwavering truth because I learned to look for discrepancies in beliefs that had been instilled in me from childhood. My self-awareness and self-esteem have indeed been affected in both a positive and negative manner because of this exposure.
That is something that I hope to balance in the future as I continue to learn more about the world I live in and mature as a person thanks to everything that I will continue to learn. I am sure that I am now a changed person after having learned a tremendous amount of knowledge regarding culture and ethnic diversity and how it works in modern society.
Conclusion
I believe that I am now a more internationally competent person because of the life experiences I had this semester. I now have a deeper understanding of other cultures and how we all affect each other lives in 6 degrees of separation kind of way. I find that each time I make a major decision these days, I always ask myself to consider how it will impact the people around me and the others down the line. That is something that I would not normally do but now find that it has become a part of my personality.