When I first started attending Florida International University, I came to Miami as an international student. I moved to the United States by myself at 17-years-old and it was a very eye opening experience. Before moving, I used to live in Bogotá, Colombia, in a very close circle of friends, went to school with the same group of people, we grew up together and our families knew each other. Moving here and not knowing anyone and just seeing a combination of so many different cultures was shocking because I did not know anything about these other cultures. Global first years helped me see this experience as a very positive one and encouraged me to learn more about all these different cultures, reason why I started my capstone project: learn Portuguese, and decided to join the Global Learning experience.
The Global Learning Medallion experience was a very meaningful one, leaving three different areas of reflection:
- Global perspective
- Global Awareness
- Global Engagement
- Global Perspective: Before coming to FIU, I had a very closed perspective of things, I had my own reality and rarely thought of how there is always another side, another reality, and a bigger perspective. This is something that I learned by getting my Global Learning Medallion, I learned to see the world from a perspective that is inclusive, welcoming, and respectful. Now I try to think of everything from a very inclusive perspective, thinking about he global and big picture and understanding how everything that I do can have an impact on everyone else's life, either from an individual or global perspective.
- Global Awareness: During my experience at FIU, my global awareness has truly awaken, I have been able to learn how to be very open and welcoming with different cultures, aspect that at the beginning was unknown for me. I started to understand how there are aspects and problems that are not unique from a culture, but that exist at a global scale and deserve to be treated as global as so. If it was not for the cultural impact that FIU had in my life, I would have not joined the program that was the one who taught me how the first step to solve is to be aware, and how by being aware of the global problems and situations we can get a step closer to do something about them.
- Global Engagement: The global engagement that the Global Learning Medallion program has given to me has been amazing. No i can confidently say I feel a citizen of the world. I have been able to engage in so many ways and at so many different levels in activities that make me feel closer to the whole world in general. I have been able to learn about different cultures, I have been able to lean about cultural problems that surround us, like I did in the Tuesday Round Tables where we meet to listen to conferences about current cultural situations that require global awareness. Besides all this, I was able to meet incredible people from so many different countries, that allowed me to see all that theory that I learned during the classes, made reality. I was able to see all the differences in our cultures and understand them, seeing difference as something positive instead of a challenge. Al of this awareness was reached due to the experiences of my Global Learning Medallion meetings and courses and I am deeply thankful for that because it will be a tool that I will keep with me for the rest of my life and will be able to share with everyone that I have around.
- The beauty of the world lies in the diversity of its people.-