Cultures

As a student at Berkeley something you will notice among the student body is the large diversity of students that attend the campus. You will see students from all over the world who speak different languages and have different cultural traditions. It’s important that you embrace this variety of people because recently I have learned how important cultural differences are in people.

Being in charge of hiring people you have to be very aware different cultural norms and be very open minded to difference traditions. This past week I came across a woman named Abby who had an excellent resume and was a very nice person. I am looking to hire people who can speak different languages so that I can diversify my market and work with different ethnic groups. She is Greek and speaks Greek fluently. When I was interviewing her I was surprised to find out that she refuses to work with other Greeks. This got me very curious about the culture and I asked her why. Apparently Greeks always refuse to work with different Greeks because they do not trust each other. They don’t mind having Greek friends, or associating with other Greeks but working with other Greeks is apparently out of the question.

I found this to be very fascinating because being at Berkeley exposed me to many different cultures but now I get to experience these things in real life. Berkeley offers many classes on cultures that I have taken, but there is something about experiencing these situations in real life that makes them much more interesting. I was prepared by my previous classes that many people have different values and cultural norms which helped me understand her. Someone who does not have this kind of training could react negatively to her approach to the interview, but because she saw that I valued her cultural view she was much more comfortable working with me.

Sometimes you sit in class and wonder “When will I ever use this?” Some things that I have learned I never thought I’d have to use but is now helpful to me. Never take what you learn for granted because you just never know when you will need it!