In order to understand better the concept of diversity, an activity was assigned so we could take some pictures around the university and analyze what do we think about diversity on campus.
This interesting activity and our experience through all these 5 years and a half, let us answer the following questions proposed by our teacher:
1. Describe your university’s faculty and administration in terms of its aspects of diversity and/or demographics.
Our university situated in Medellin, Colombia is suffering a kind of increasing 'movement' of foreign people, this is because of the improvement of security reasons, which have made the University to take this subject in consideration the last few years, which is related to culture, environment and social differences. When you're going to analyze how many abroad teachers does our University has, there are just a few. In the International business department, the chief of this area is, Sascha Fürst, comes from Germany giving some new international to this faculty, at the same, a new Austrian teacher has taken charge of one class in the emphasis of International Relations. This shows a certain kind of interest from the university to hire abroad teachers, in order to expand the student´s knowledge beyond national thoughts and believes that we hope will continue growing. But if you compare this with international universities we will realize that what is happening here is a very low percentage of abroad teachers. In other words, unless we don't have a specific investigation in this subject, the percentage of teachers in our university from local cities of the country is bigger than the percentage of international teachers. Teachers from the Caribbean coast, Cali, Bogotá among others are some examples of this. These mean differences of customs, attitudes toward life, values, social and even physical variations. But at the end, those teachers have their own way to teach their classes and share knowledge independently, without taken in consideration the country, their values and customs.
2. Describe your university’s student body in terms of its aspects of diversity and/or demographics.
Something a little bit different is happening with the student body due to the agreements that EAFIT has with many universities around the world. The agreements give the opportunity to foreign people to come here to Medellin and study one semester or one year of their careers and knowing the Colombian culture and people, as an exchange opportunity. The university is committed to being "OPEN TO THE WORLD", so there are huge efforts been made not only to send Colombian students to other countries but also bringing students of diverse countries around the world. Today, EAFIT University has students from different nationalities among them French, Sweden, United States, Denmark, Japan, England, Australia, Korea, Germany and The Netherlands. This occurs especially in the International Business Department, in which the students have more subjects in common with programs of all the world, also the language helps a lot for them because they choose seeing subjects in English and is a career in which students and teachers have a big facility and knowledge about the other cultures because of the field of studies. In terms of regional diversity, the student body its very diverse, EAFIT have a high percentage of people of all the regions of Colombia, Caribbean coast, Bogotá, Coffee Region, Santander, among others, that gives the University a very important and rich cultural environment where students learn to understand other people and be more open minded. This high diversity of nationalities allows students to think out of the box, to go belong the traditional, to go far away from what they are used to and these reflects on people more prepared to the world and more creative to solutions.
This interesting activity and our experience through all these 5 years and a half, let us answer the following questions proposed by our teacher:1. Describe your university’s faculty and administration in terms of its aspects of diversity and/or demographics.
Our university situated in Medellin, Colombia is suffering a kind of increasing 'movement' of foreign people, this is because of the improvement of security reasons, which have made the University to take this subject in consideration the last few years, which is related to culture, environment and social differences. When you're going to analyze how many abroad teachers does our University has, there are just a few. In the International business department, the chief of this area is, Sascha Fürst, comes from Germany giving some new international to this faculty, at the same, a new Austrian teacher has taken charge of one class in the emphasis of International Relations. This shows a certain kind of interest from the university to hire abroad teachers, in order to expand the student´s knowledge beyond national thoughts and believes that we hope will continue growing. But if you compare this with international universities we will realize that what is happening here is a very low percentage of abroad teachers. In other words, unless we don't have a specific investigation in this subject, the percentage of teachers in our university from local cities of the country is bigger than the percentage of international teachers. Teachers from the Caribbean coast, Cali, Bogotá among others are some examples of this. These mean differences of customs, attitudes toward life, values, social and even physical variations. But at the end, those teachers have their own way to teach their classes and share knowledge independently, without taken in consideration the country, their values and customs.
2. Describe your university’s student body in terms of its aspects of diversity and/or demographics.
Something a little bit different is happening with the student body due to the agreements that EAFIT has with many universities around the world. The agreements give the opportunity to foreign people to come here to Medellin and study one semester or one year of their careers and knowing the Colombian culture and people, as an exchange opportunity. The university is committed to being "OPEN TO THE WORLD", so there are huge efforts been made not only to send Colombian students to other countries but also bringing students of diverse countries around the world. Today, EAFIT University has students from different nationalities among them French, Sweden, United States, Denmark, Japan, England, Australia, Korea, Germany and The Netherlands. This occurs especially in the International Business Department, in which the students have more subjects in common with programs of all the world, also the language helps a lot for them because they choose seeing subjects in English and is a career in which students and teachers have a big facility and knowledge about the other cultures because of the field of studies. In terms of regional diversity, the student body its very diverse, EAFIT have a high percentage of people of all the regions of Colombia, Caribbean coast, Bogotá, Coffee Region, Santander, among others, that gives the University a very important and rich cultural environment where students learn to understand other people and be more open minded. This high diversity of nationalities allows students to think out of the box, to go belong the traditional, to go far away from what they are used to and these reflects on people more prepared to the world and more creative to solutions.
3. What are the similarities and differences between the two groups?
When you apply as an EAFIT student to an abroad university you're competting with a lot people who also wants to study there, but for a foreign student applying to our university may be easier cause there's not a bunch of people trying hard to come here (as we said before this indicator is increasing but slowly)
An other difference is the language barrier for a foreign employee or student, not all the people hired in EAFIT speaks 2 languages, making it more difficult to have a multicultural work team. For students it’s also difficult to study in Colombia because there are several classes that are in Spanish and many teachers don’t speak other language as well. The legal procedures for foreign to study in Colombia makes it impossible for some to come to EAFIT, issue that makes EAFIT not so open to the world, due to the Colombian policies.
A main similarity between both groups is how in the professional or student atmosphere it’s an intention to be nice and helpful to foreign, attitude that makes it easy for them to stay for longer periods, even for life time in Medellin and EAFIT. Some times EAFIT tends to hire foreign people because they think all foreign people are good professionals, and the truth is that as students sometimes we find it’s the opposite. Foreign students tend to have a nice time in EAFIT, the experience are making other want to come and maybe in some years we can say we are really open to the world and the world is open toward us.
4. How does the degree of diversity in the faculty affect your learning experience?
Well, that affect our learning experiences in many ways, and of us as being International managers enriches our point of view of the different kinds of culture and nationalities that will be very useful in a future negotiation, journey, or just for general culture that make us world citizens.
In the other hand, talking about social diversity if university could receive more students of lower economic status, will enrich our lives in so many ways beginning from the issue that we all are different, not the same money, not the same house, transportation, or even family. I personally think this will be so helpful for EAFIT students, we, the one that are judge from other local unviersities that think we all are rich and only go to show us to others. A very popular perception of EAFIT students that should be cutted. So, this fact of sharing with other people will affect in a positive way to be more persons than profesionals.
5. How does the degree of diversity in the student body affect the classroom experience, and extracurricular activities? What are the advantages and disadvantages?
We believe that diversity in EAFIT affects us in a positive way, since people from different cultures could give us a broader vision of the world by showing us characteristics of their cultures, customs, and behaviors. This could be taken as an advantage, because we as International Managers should be open to know and learn about people who come from different sides of our country of from abroad. At the same time having foreigners will enrich teacher's view so they can realize if what they are saying stills the same or if is changing.
We actually don't think that we could find disadvantages on this issue. The only fact we could think of, is that sometimes diversity could cause isolation from certain groups because of the impact of entering a new culture, but this eventually could change in the course of the semester.
We actually don't think that we could find disadvantages on this issue. The only fact we could think of, is that sometimes diversity could cause isolation from certain groups because of the impact of entering a new culture, but this eventually could change in the course of the semester.
6. What could be done in terms of diversity to enrich your college experience?
To enrich our college experience it would be interesting:
- To have more diverse people in the campus, because we can learn in such environment about others behaviors, beliefs and values which help us to be better prepared to become active participants in our society once we leave the college.
- Also we think that EAFIT should have more classes that give the students (not only International Business students) the opportunity to learn more about other cultures, because it’s important to be “Open minded” and accept all the differences between the people and cultures.
- Sending the teachers to countries that have a very different culture, that they study, live and have a common life there, it would be very interesting to learn about a country when the teacher really knows it and not only because he read about it.
- Giving more scholarships to the people that want to study in EAFIT, even when we talk about medellín, we don't have to go that far, to other countries to think in scolarships to increase the diversity. Widening the range of people that could have that access based in some restrictions but that could let in more students.
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