Intro to International Cultures is a class I never planned on taking, but I am very happy that I did. This course was full of firsts for me. It was my first night class, my first class that met only once a week for what seemed like an eternity, and it may be the only class I take that had five different professors. The last point is what really convinced me to take the course. The idea of learning about different cultures through the lenses of five different disciplines was very intriguing.

The unit that I expected to struggle with the most was Economics. I took an economics class the previous semester, and I was more challenged than I expected to be. However, I was very pleasantly surprised with the information we were tasked with learning and the activities we completed.

INST-100-01 Biringer Letter to the Editor

An example of one of our activities was a Letter to the Editor in which we found an article about international economics and commented on it. The article I chose was about the spread of COVID-19, but it was written before cases had started spreading beyond China. It details how markets are greatly affected by the spread of illness, but I don’t know if the writer anticipated how big of a toll it would take. This toll has become extremely evident with the creation of the quarantine, closing of businesses, and requirement of safety equipment (masks, gloves, etc.) in certain areas.

This activity as well as the ones assigned by the other professors all helped me to understand how different cultures work together and influence each other in unique ways. I feel educated on issues I didn’t ever now I was interested in, and I feel as though I am better fit to interact with and understand people of different cultures.