"We know that diversity makes us a better university -- better for learning, for teaching, and for conducting research."
(U-M President Mary Sue Coleman)
Share an experience through which you have gained respect for intellectual, social, or cultural differences. Comment on how your personal experiences and achievements would contribute to the diversity of the University of Michigan.
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One of the most rewarding cultural experiences I had was getting to know my friends in India.
During my childhood in the Arabian Gulf, my parents and that society sometimes encouraged discriminatory perspectives in their youth. This included prejudice against religion, color and regional origins. With my limited exposure to India and its natives, I was tempted to believe most Indians were as discriminatory as my parents. Just because they seemed to paint a picture where people were to be categorized based on their region, or color or any other generalized trait, I made the exact same mistake, thinking all Indians thought the way they did.
I moved to India when I was around 18 for a firsthand experience of India. Hitherto, I had only briefly glimpsed the culture from car windows and hotel tours during the few weeks of vacation my parents arranged every year. This started the cultural experience of a lifetime. I met 'real' Indians, who had a strong sense of cultural identity. Yet they challenged every presupposition my parents' society had led me to believe and the ones I had developed personally.
It was evident that all people were not as my previous society had portrayed. I learned that people of all colors, from all states of India, had their positives and negatives, but they were all unique.
My rewarding experience only resonated during my stay in the US, where people of all cultures and backgrounds are able to mingle. I was finally allowed to exchange viewpoints about economics with people from communist China, religion with a person from Haiti, and the finer points of hot sauce with a Guatemalan.
This exposure showed me the kind of enjoyment and humanist positivity that has resonated with me since then. I would like to share that social resonance, with the people at UM and keep that energy going.
