POINT ACTIVITIES

 

As a GL Medallion student, two of my favorite activities were the annual celebrations of Language Day and the weekly Tuesday Times Roundtable workshops. Language Day at FIU is a very interactive celebration with activities aimed at showcasing world languages as unique representations of different cultures. Activities include karaoke in different languages, conversations with native speakers, and opportunities to study or work abroad while acquiring a new language. The Tuesday Times Roundtable workshops were an opportunity to learn about pressing global matters from climate change to freedom of speech, to the economic and political roles of women in society. The workshops were supplemented with readings from The New York Times, which emphasizes the importance of staying informed with the adequate sources in a world filled where misinformation has become a common theme.

 

 

FINAL REFLECTION

 

At FIU, I have had the fortune of feeling welcomed and motivated to explore the full potential of my abilities on this campus. The majority of students at FIU are of Hispanic/Latinx origin, and that fact has contributed to my sense of not feeling out of place most of the time. However, that same comfort I feel may not be mirrored by students from different races and ethnicities, which brings about the importance of having diversity represented within the student body, as well as in faculty and staff members, so that a safe space for students can be established. This idea of valuing diversity in all its forms has become an essential tenant of my global perspective, engagement, and awareness that I was able to develop through the Global Learning initiatives at FIU.

 

The myriad of Global Learning courses that I took during my undergraduate career, such as bioethics, anthropology, world religions, psychology, etc., allowed me to assess the richness and depth that different cultures have and how those cultures are crucial components of an individual’s identity. Spending my teenage years in such a diverse environment as the one Miami provides has made my global perspective become relativistic in nature and has helped me tear down preconceived notions about other cultures.

 

We are currently living in a period of time where the forces of globalization and technology and constantly at play. These forces shape and reshape cultures in different ways and at different speeds. This notion of change has made it of utmost importance to me to be aware of global issues. Socioenvironmental changes are not isolated events that only happen to a few people. Given enough time, these changes can snowball into more severe issues and affect the vast expanses of our world. Such a case is that of climate change. Capitalist governments and members of social elites tend to be dismissive of the negative impacts of climate change because they are either not directly affected by the problem or they have the resources to relocate to safer areas. This example is a representation of how my global awareness has changed throughout college. I no longer think it is enough to know what is going in different parts of the world, but it is also necessary to feel empathy for those who are impacted and to help devise solutions that can address and minimize problems for the overall population.