The most important thing...

One of the most important things I feel this class has taught me is that when we think intercultural we need to view all cultures. In order to do this we need to understand what a culture is actually made up of. Often we see culture as specifically related to ethnicity, but it isn’t.

This class has shown me that true culture can be defined in a lot of different ways, far more than I would have considered prior to this class. Anywhere a group is created and ideas, meaning, emotions, or patterns are developed a culture is created. Culture has a strong influence on our perceptions and thought processes and is used as a basis for many of the things we do and how we communicate our ideas and thoughts. Because there are so many cultures that could be considered and no one can be expected to know each and every one of them, just being able to approach communication with this knowledge could really help in diffusing a lot of the conflicts we have today.

We no longer, and never really did, exist in a vacuum and we can’t continue to use our separatism as a reason for being intolerant of others cultures. Globalization is a term that has been used for the last few years and it continues to be a main topic in today’s economy. Globalization is both internal to the US, in that our populations continue to diversify and expand, and it is external, in that we are becoming dependent or working with other countries as a regular course of business and politics. The understanding of the true meaning of culture and its impact on communication is and will continue to be a very important part of our future, politically, economically, and personally.

I’m a decent communicator and I feel that from an intercultural perspective I communicate well with many obvious cultures. I say obvious because as I stated above, I basically have a better understanding of what culture is now. So in understand the obvious ones, I’m not too shabby, but when dealing with the not so obvious ones, I will need to consider that a bit more when communicating with anyone. My end goal is to be a counselor. I will need to, just from that perspective alone, fine tune and practice my skills at communication in general and this must be one of the areas that I take more interest in.

As I said above, we continue to become a more diverse society. Social work, which is what I am choosing to pursue may put me directly at the forefront of dealing with many of the different culture groups we have discussed in this class. In order for me to be successful, I must be better at recognizing and improving my communication with those less obvious intercultural influences, and continue to improve those that are obvious.

How do you think improving your intercultural communication skills will help you in your chosen future occupations?