Networking

Networking has been a hard one for me, truth be told. I knew and expected to speak to strangers once I started working but did not realize how helpful networking is during the college years. For the majority of my college years, I have spent my semesters quietly studying by myself or in groups but not really speaking to professors much. But now in my senior year, I do wish I had done more networking with professors and mentors. These wonderful people are full of knowledge about internships and pathways to achieve what you want to acomplish. If I could give a small piece of advice to anyone coming into college, I would tell them to get a mentor right away. It was hard for me to get a mentor because I wasn't sure of what I wanted to do. But a mentor would have helped bring some clarity in my college path. Whether with professors or other professional mentors... connect, connect, connect!

Cultural Responsiveness

Cultural intelligence and cultural responsiveness are the abilities that allow people to see the differences in opportunities and treatment given to some while being denied to others. These abilities also help controlling one’s own feelings and perspectives to be completely impartial and therefore fair in any situation. This is not always easy as everyone has their own beliefs and way-of-life that are unique to them. But, cultural intelligence is necessary for U.S. communities to flourish as these are comprised of many people and usually these are of different cultures as well. Some strategies discussed during the seminar were curiosity and emotional intelligence. I will focus on adopting these two in my professional life to make sure I am being fair to those around me. Curiosity to me means staying alert to those things that other cultures do but I don’t understand and tend to dismiss. If something about one culture or person puzzles me, I will ask or do my own research to know what it means. Emotional intelligence means to put aside my own feelings to welcome new information. If anyone is interested in working on their cultural responsiveness, the following article gives a very straight-to-the-point overview and good examples. Guzman, Maria R., Durden, Tonia R., Taylor, Sarah A., Guzman, Jackie M., Potthoff, Kathy L. (2016). Cultural competence: An important skill set for the 21st century. NebGuide, Nebraska Extension. https://extensionpublications.unl.edu/assets/html/g1375/build/g1375.htm#:~:text=Displaying%20the%20cultural%20competence%20behaviors,similarities%20and%20differences%20among%20cultures.