Diversity and the College Experience by Kayla

Diversity and the College Experience by Kayla - November 2016 Scholarship Essay

Diversity in college teaches you many life lessons that will prepare you for a successful future. This is the experience I am most looking forward to than any other I anticipate to learn from during my college years. I have attended upper-middle class schools in my small town of Gig Harbor, WA my whole life. The kids I grew up with all come from very similar backgrounds. When I start college, I look forward to meeting people from all over the country and the world, whose backgrounds are drastically different from my own. I know that learning from diversity will prepare me for career success, help me learn more about myself, and broaden my view of the world from what I know now.
Experiencing diversity on a college campus is one of the best ways to prepare me for future success as an engineer. In all professions, success today means being comfortable relating to people of different backgrounds, economically, intellectually and culturally. Today's workplace is the most diverse it has ever been. College is an excellent opportunity to lay the groundwork for the work environment I will face.
I also anticipate diversity will help me become more self-aware. I want to meet and learn from people whose experiences have been much different than my own. It will broaden the variety of people I can easily associate with and develop relationships with. Broadening my social experiences will help solidify my beliefs of who I am and what I stand for.
Diversity is also going to help me expand my view of the world. It’s been shown that we learn more from people who are different from us than from people who are similar to us. Diversity will show me how to view issues from different angles. I want it to give me a bigger perspective of the world around me and how I fit in it.
Experiencing diversity is a great teacher of life lessons. My college campus will be the first time I will really get to experience diversity in such a way to have a lasting impact on my life. My academic, professional, and personal lives will be changed for the better. This is the opportunity that I will be most thankful to take away from my college years.