At the beginning of the semester, I had a plan to get really involved and join a lot of clubs and organizations. To demonstrate that, below is one of the reflections I wrote for class on the subject of what clubs I wanted to join, and what I wanted to get out of them:

There are several things I want to get out of international clubs and organizations at OU, the most important of which is international friendships. I think that simply becoming friends with somebody is by far the best way to understand that person’s life and culture. Not only that, but making international friends is also a good reminder that all people share certain similarities. I’m sometimes prone to broadly generalize countries and cultures that I don’t really know, and I occasionally need to be reminded that people everywhere are still people, and aren’t fundamentally different from people in my own culture. I’m really excited to be a part of OU Cousins, since the entire purpose of the program is to simply make friends with and try to understand international students.

My two secondary reasons for joining international organizations are language practice and preparing to work internationally as an engineer. Speaking Chinese makes me unreasonably happy, and I plan on studying abroad in China for at least a semester, so I’d really like to be able to join the Chinese language club. I’d really like to be able to improve my Chinese skills, while possibly making more international friends and learning about Chinese culture. I’m also very interested in joining Sooners Without Borders, since it combines engineering and international engagement. The main focus of Sooners Without Borders is water safety around the planet, which is a fascinating and hugely important subject. I plan on majoring in engineering and hopefully working abroad, so Sooners Without Borders is the perfect way for me to see what that might be like, while connecting with people throughout the world.

Now, we’re a little more than a week away from the end of the semester, and it’s time to see how many of these things I actually accomplished. First, international friendships. I did participate in OU cousins, and became friends with my cousin. We hung out a few times, carved some pumpkins together, and I really did learn a lot about Chinese culture. She’ll still be here next semester, so we’ll be able to develop that friendship further. I also made a few other international friends along the way, who are all incredibly fun to be around. In terms of my other goals for the semester, I didn’t accomplish quite so much. I went to Chinese Corner a few times, but I never really got involved with the Chinese Language Club or Sooners Without Borders. Mostly, this was because their meetings conflicted with practice times for OU Crew, but to be honest, I probably could have done more to get involved. I think I was a bit afraid of overcommitting and reverting to my stressed-out high school self, but I now realize that I definitely had time to do more than I did. I’m glad I took an easy semester, but next semester I plan on being involved much more than I am now.

This post is my reaction to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talk on the danger of a single story, which we watched during the first week of class.

Everyone in the world is limited by the number of stories they are exposed to. It is impossible for anyone to ever hear, see, or experience all the possible stories in the world, and I think it’s safe to assume that the majority of people have only one story, or no story at all, about the majority of the world. That is, we don’t really understand our own world. For example, in the United States, most people only have one story of the conflict between Israel and Palestine. However, this story is only a fraction of the actual situation, so while we know there is a conflict, and may think we understand it, we actually don’t. Even worse, there is undoubtedly some event occurring at this moment that is hugely important for the people involved, but I don’t even know it’s happening. I don’t even have a single story pertaining to this event that’s shaping the course of human lives.

Since we are limited in the number of stories we are exposed to, we don’t have a great understanding of things which we haven’t seen multiple sides of. For example, I’ve never really been abroad, except for a very short trip on an isolated beach in Mexico when I was too young to remember much of what happened. This means that the stories I’ve accumulated about other countries are very limited. For example, the only people I know who are from China have been my Chinese teachers, and Chinese class has shaped my ideas about what Chinese people and culture are like. However, I’m pretty sure that China is more than just Chinese teachers and educational videos about Chinese New Year.

The interesting thing out stories is that they are not just a way to understand, they are the only way to understand. Using my example above, even though I recognize that I don’t actually know what China is like, this isn’t enough to allow me to understand. To actually understand Chinese culture, I would need more stories. This is one of the many reasons why studying abroad is so important. It isn’t enough to just know that the rest of the world isn’t exactly like the U.S.. To actually understand how people think, it’s necessary to seek out multiple experiences and stories. The easiest way to do this, of course, is to get outside the U.S..

As mentioned earlier, it is not possible to know all the stories in the world, and it is therefore impossible to fully understand the world. However, by seeking out multiple stories, we can come much closer than we would be with only a single story.

For the first half of the semester, my study abroad plans were pretty vague. One of the requirements of the Global Engagement Fellowship is that I study abroad twice, once for a semester and once for a summer. So I know that I would need to do that. I knew that I wanted to spend my semester in China, to hone my Chinese skills. I hoped that I would be spending the summer after my freshman year somewhere halfway across the world, not back home in Colorado. What I didn’t think about was how I was actually going to make these things happen. As it turns out, planning a trip overseas isn’t easy, especially if the duration of said trip is an entire semester, and if one has to think about actually getting the credits one needs to graduate. As a chemical engineering major, I already have a lot of classes to get done in my four years, all of which are sequential and only offered in one semester each year. Add to that a second major in Chinese, and you’ve got a pretty intense schedule, that’s manageable only because I tested out of some beginning Chinese courses. Now throw in a semester abroad, in a place where I’m unlikely to be able to take chemical engineering classes. The result is a giant mess.

Now comes in the intense patience and problem solving part. The first step to solving any problem is research. So, a few weeks before advising appointments started, I picked up my degree checksheet, and started researching what classes would be offered at OU next semester and over the summer. After a few days of rearranging my possible schedules for the next few semesters, I found, to my great surprise, that the class I needed to get one semester ahead was miraculously listed as a course that would be offered next semester. I met with various advisers to make sure my plan would work, and went happily on my way, thinking about all the cool things I might get to see and do in China next year.

Of course, this wouldn’t be an exercise in intense patience and problem-solving if that was the end of the story. When it came time to enroll, I logged on to ozone and started registering for classes, only to realize that CH E 2033, the one class I needed to clear a semester for studying abroad, was no longer listed. After a few moments of heartbreak, I began to research process again. The school of engineering with all their pre-requisites and sequential courses and scheduling conflicts wasn’t going to defeat me! Since I couldn’t take CH E 2033 in the spring, I decided that maybe I could take it during the summer. Of course, it’s not offered at OU, but I figured that there had to be at least one college in the country that was offering an acceptable course over the summer. At first, it looked like my only options were in Houston and Tulsa, both of which were pretty expensive and incredibly inconvenient. But, after some more research, I found that CU-Boulder, which is at least marginally close to my parents’ house, was offering a course that sounded somewhat similar, and another plan began to form. I met with two advisers at OU to make sure my plan would work before I started the process of getting the course approved for transfer credit. Eventually, I got the course approved, and I now have a reasonable plan to study in China for fall 2015!

The ultimate moral of the story here is that if there’s a will, there’s a way! And that way almost always involves research. The secondary moral, of course, is talk to advisers because they know way more than you do. It’s always good to do your research and come up with your own plan, but check it with an adviser to make sure it will actually work how you’re expecting it to. There’s a second secondary moral which wasn’t really made clear in the story, which is to start everything super early! It won’t eliminate stress from your life but it will certainly help. Reading this probably wasn’t very interesting, but I hope you now have hope that you’ll be able to fit study abroad into your schedule. If a ChemE/Chinese major can make it fit, you can too!

We had mid-semester meetings to make sure we’re meeting the requirements for the Global Engagement Fellowship. I thought my mid-semester meeting went pretty well. It was really helpful to just go over the requirements again and make sure I was on track to get everything done. I’m not always the best at keeping track of all the requirements for a program, so it was good to make sure everything was in order and make sure there weren’t going to be any unpleasant surprises at the end of the semester. It was also really helpful to talk about the digital portfolio and story. I wasn’t quite clear on the exact expectations for either of those things, so it was definitely good to get that cleared up.

After the mid-semester meeting, I do have a few goals for the rest of this semester. First, I’d obviously like to follow through with the three goals I had for the meeting to continue becoming more globally engaged. It’s only been about a week, but so far I think I’m doing pretty well with my goal of keeping up on international news. After the conference, I also have a few additional goals. One is to stay focused for the last half of the semester. I tend to lose focus in the third quarter of just about anything, which is starting right about now. The last few weeks I’ve noticed my focus slipping away just a little bit, and I don’t want to let that continue. I hope to not lose focus by simply being aware of the fact that it usually happens, and by scheduling my time really well. I’ve found that if I have a written list of things to do, I’m much more likely to get everything done, so I’ll make sure to do that in order to stay focused. Finally, another goal for the rest of this semester is to keep up with my Global Engagement blog. I’m not very familiar with blogging, and I can already see that I’ll probably forget to post because it’s not a one-time thing, but it also isn’t a daily thing. Again, I think this problem can probably be solved by writing something down. (Edit: It’s the end of the semester and I just now managed to post this! I didn’t do a very good job of keeping up with posting here, but I’ll try to do better in the future!)

I watched Manu Prakash’s TED talk on his 50 cent microscope, and you should too.
http://www.ted.com/talks/manu_prakash_a_50_cent_microscope_that_folds_like_origami

The idea of a microscope made of paper is incredibly powerful, and has so many applications in so many parts of the world. I never really thought about microscopes as needing to be rethought, and I doubt many people do. After the microscope was first invented, it fulfilled our needs at the time, and continues to be useful in the developed world today, so we never really thought about changing it. When we donate microscopes to health clinics in the developing world, we don’t really think about how useful they will actually be, we just assume that they will work the same in developing countries as they do in the developed world. Of course, this is incorrect, and brings up one of the fundamental issues we face when dealing with other parts of the world, and particularly the developing world.

When we think about helping the developed world, the first thing we want to do is export our knowledge and technology, so that they can enjoy the same benefits that technology has given us. We think that by giving them our technology, we will be able to speed up their development process, and better the lives of people living in developing countries. While this is true to some extent, our technology doesn’t have nearly the impact we expect it to because we fail to take into account the differences between our society and the societies in Africa, or Latin America, or Asia, or really anywhere other than the United States. This is a fundamental reason that our aid is ineffective in many developing countries. When we install a water pump, we don’t think about the fact that the locals probably don’t have the tools to repair it when it breaks, so it becomes useless within a few years. When we donate a microscope to health clinics, we don’t think about the fact that people might not know how to use it, and there probably isn’t a perfectly clean, sanitized environment for it to operate, so it will probably wear down or break. I convinced my parents to buy my brother and I a cheap microscope when we were younger, and I can attest to the fact that conventional microscopes do not stand up to being used in less than ideal environments.

Prakash’s 50 cent microscope solves a lot of these problems. They’re cheap to make, so if one breaks, no big deal. They’re easy to put together, and directions are in the form of color-coding, rather than being in English or some other language in which people in the developing world might not be proficient. Even though they’re made of paper, they’re much more durable and useable than traditional microscopes. Such a device would be huge for health clinics in the developing world. As Prakash mentioned, they also have educational applications. It’s hard enough for a hospital to get microscopes in the developing world, much less a school. But if a microscope only cost 50 cents, it would be huge for science education in developing countries. Solutions like this make me really excited about majoring in engineering. There are so many problems out there that we don’t even think about, but that have such incredibly powerful solutions. This is definitely one of those solutions.

This week we talked about the merits and drawbacks of international volunteering. As it turns out, there are a lot of problems with international volunteering, particularly short term, “voluntourism” projects. I haven’t ever gone on an international volunteer trip, but I definitely wanted to go on one. Of course, I didn’t really have a clear idea of what I wanted to do or how it would be helpful. I would most likely have made all of the mistakes we discussed in class. After this class, however, I’m much more skeptical of international volunteer service. I still think there is merit to volunteering, we just need to be careful about how we volunteer, and how we think about volunteering.

First, I think it’s just as important to volunteer close to home as it is to volunteer internationally. It’s much easier to make a long-term commitment and make a real difference close to home than halfway across the world. I volunteered at a therapeutic riding center every weekend for several years back in Colorado, and if I had to guess, I’d say that had more of a positive impact than anything I could have reasonably done internationally. Another issue with international volunteering is that it can perpetuate misunderstanding of developing countries. It’s easy to homogenize entire developing countries, or even entire continents (Africa). It’s easy to assume that all Africans are poor and in need of our help, and traveling to Africa solely to volunteer can perpetuate this misunderstanding. We can also start to think of ourselves as superior, because they need our help. Of course, this is incredibly problematic.

I don’t mean to say that international volunteering is all bad. There are still ways we can, and should, help internationally, and nothing is wrong with wanting to make people’s lives better. We just need to think about the potential issues, and try to avoid as many as possible. If we volunteer internationally, we should focus on sustainable and long term solutions, and make sure some system is in place to maintain those solutions. This doesn’t mean that if you complete a project abroad you have to fly halfway across the world to check back every year, but there may be potential for more volunteer trips that focus on maintaining projects, rather than making new ones. The most helpful projects may not be the most glamorous. On that note, we need to be careful about our attitudes toward volunteer projects. We should be careful not to fall into the trap of considering ourselves superior to the people we are helping, or of assuming we know what’s best for them. I think a lot of volunteer projects are ineffective because foreign volunteers assume they know what people in a certain community need, when in reality, this community functions differently than Western society, and the solutions that we might institute in Western society won’t be effective. Instead of assuming that we know everything, we need to work with local communities to create real solutions.

This week in class we listened to a panel of people who had studied abroad. The perspectives of the panel were really helpful. One of my biggest worries about going abroad is the fact that I’ll be so obviously different. I think that having the experience of being an outsider is one of the most interesting and useful aspects of studying abroad, but I’ve never really been an “outsider” before, and it definitely makes me nervous. Hearing from people who have already been abroad and dealt with being an outsider calmed my nerves a bit. It was reassuring to hear that people were usually willing to use English when it became necessary. Obviously, I want to be able to use English as little as possible while abroad, but it’s nice to know that if I need it, there will probably be someone who can speak English and help me out. It was also good to hear from the women on the panel that gender wasn’t really an issue for them while abroad.

The panel also made me think about a few issues that I hadn’t really thought about before, which will help me be ready to deal with those issues. For example, I never really thought about religion being an issue abroad. I don’t know why, because religion is a huge issue in general, but I just never thought about it. I’m not religious, but it was good for me to recognize that I may have to go to church with a host family or something like that. I have no problems doing that, but I still think it’s a good thing to be ready for. I also never thought about the fact that people might want to take pictures of me abroad because I’ll look different. Again, this is a small issue and I don’t think it will bother me, but it’s good to know about ahead of time. Listening to the panel definitely helped me plan ahead and be more prepared for some of the issues that I might face while abroad.

This week in class, we did an activity that involved some members of the class being “outsiders”, while the rest of the class acted as a foreign society. Three of us were the “outsiders”, and our aim was to find out as much as we could about the culture of the rest of the class. We could only go into the classroom one at a time, and we could ask any members of the class whatever questions we wanted to. When I went into the classroom, the answer to every question was either “yes, yes, yes” or “no, no, no”, and they would often answer the same question two different ways when asked multiple times. Additionally, some people refused to speak to me at all. The three of us “outsiders” came up with a lot of guesses about their culture, all of which were ultimately wrong. The actual rule was that they respond with “yes, yes, yes” when people seemed happy, and “no, no, no” when people seemed upset. Additionally, they could only answer to people with the same sleeve length as they had.

Though there wasn’t much to find out about the class “culture”, this activity was really interesting and really opened my eyes to what traveling abroad might be like. When the people in the strange culture continued to only say “yes, yes, yes” and “no, no, no”, trying to find out about their culture, or even ask any simple question, became very frustrating very quickly. While I was trying to communicate with the rest of the people in the class, I always felt as though everyone knew something I didn’t. I can definitely see how a similar situation could (and probably will) happen abroad, which I didn’t really think about before. It’s always been obvious that when I go abroad, I’ll be in a different place, and people will be different from me, but what I’m starting to realize is that a layer of my confidence comes from knowing how people are likely to act, and when I go abroad, that layer of confidence won’t be there. I felt a bit nervous just with people from our class pretending to be from a different culture, so I’m definitely nervous about getting my bearings when I go abroad and feel completely out of place and uninformed. I’m definitely a lot more nervous about going abroad now than I was, but I also think I’ll be more prepared for that feeling of isolation and awkwardness as a result of this class.

Overall, I think the more I learn about studying abroad, and the clearer ideas I have of what my experience might be like, the more overwhelming it becomes. When we filled out the study abroad questionnaire, it brought up a lot of things that I hadn’t really started to consider yet. For example, I didn’t even think about hospitals or medicines before filling out the questionnaire. I didn’t really think about location or living conditions either. I’ve been so preoccupied with trying to figure out where to fit in a semester abroad without falling behind in my major that I haven’t really thought about any of these other hugely important issues. This week was a bit of a wakeup call in terms of me realizing how many details go into studying abroad. Thinking about all the details definitely made me nervous, but it also inspired me to do some serious planning, so that’s at least one positive. I’m definitely glad we got this started now, because I have time to look through all the options, and pick something that will work well with what I want to do.

In class, we talked about how we can avoid unnecessarily offending people from different countries both in the US and while abroad. This involved a discussion as well as a panel of international students. I have several habits and behaviors that I will be trying to change as a result of this week’s discussion. Now that I’ve started to question my habits, I’ve realized that there are a lot of things I say that I don’t even think about, but that are actually fairly insensitive. When the international students were saying the things that they don’t necessarily appreciate being asked, I realized that I have actually asked people those questions. For example, I have definitely asked someone if they knew somebody who was also from the same country, even though it’s impossible that a person would know every single other person from their country. I realize now how ridiculous of a question that was. One of the International students also mentioned how weird how annoying it is when people automatically assume that they don’t know anything about the United States. I try not to make assumptions, but I can see how it would be easy to automatically think of myself as a kind of mentor, rather than a friend. I realize now that thinking like that is inherently insulting, and I’ll make a conscious effort not to think that way in the future.
Additionally, I think I can sometimes be that person who pretends to know things instead of asking questions, and I’ll definitely be working to change that.
I also found the potential study abroad scenarios that we went through really interesting. They exposed a lot of weird things about our country and culture that I don’t usually think about or even notice. For one, I don’t usually think about using “America” and “United States” interchangeably, but they definitely don’t mean the same thing. I can also see how it’s a really great way to offend people without even thinking about it. This discussion also made me realize just how strange our media is. No media ever represents it’s people perfectly, but our media is just really strange. I can see why people make certain assumptions about the U.S. based on our media. Finally, the situation where the host mother was always following the exchange student to turn off the lights made me realize just how lucky I am, as a college kid in the United States, with adequate access to all the resources I need and more. It’s really tricky to be in this situation and not feel incredibly guilty about all of the unnecessary resources I’m currently consuming at this very moment. I’ve definitely been inspired by that discussion to make a conscious effort to conserve resources as much as possible.