Usability and Design Challenges, Research Paper Example

In addition to an impressive academic track record, I have also enjoyed an active extracurricular lifestyle. Some of my major extracurricular involvements include being Vice President and eventually President of the Math Team, Co-Captain of the Tennis Team, Treasurer of the Beta Club, Captain of Junior Varsity (Academic), and Co-Captain of Varsity (Academic). In addition, I have also enjoyed memberships in National Honor Society, Chess Club, and a music band. These different experiences have taught me different valuable soft skills such as leadership, work ethics, teamwork, communication, time management, and organization. But my most treasured extracurricular experience might have been participation in high school’s international festival as a Beta Club member. I highly value this experience due to the reality of the world we live in. Our world is increasingly being shaped by the forces of globalization yet communication gaps among cultures continue to be wide. True global peace cannot be achieved unless there is greater interaction among cultures.

I had always known that my school has a diverse student population but the festival made me realized I had severely underestimated the level of diversity in my school. As I talked to different families whose children were attending my high school, I discovered that even students from the same national background may belong to different cultures. Like many people, I had been making the mistake of judging people by factors such as skin color, appearance, and language. As I reflected upon it, I realized that such an approach only promotes distance because we rely so much on first impressions that we do not strive to learn more about others through personal interaction. Another problem with this approach is that we severely underestimate the diversity in society and as such its economic and social implications.

Before attending the festival, I was of the opinion that cultures do not want to interact with each other due to fear of losing their identity. Moreover, there is high level of distrust among different cultures because they all think they are better than others. But my observations in the festival could not have been more different. Not only participants in the festival took great interest in learning about other cultures but actually enjoyed the process. One could tell they were excited to expand their worldview. A significant proportion of the participants expressed their desire to travel abroad because they felt the world is too interesting to not explore.

By talking to festival participants, I also learnt that people from different parts of the world almost desire the same things which are peace, social prosperity, and economic progress. In addition, most of the people actually want to learn more about other cultures because they feel the media is too biased and do not properly educate the public.

The international festival inspired me so much that one of my major goals is now to visit at least fifty countries in my lifetime and use my experiences and insights to bridge gap between cultures. When we show interest in another culture, we win the goodwill of the natives of that culture and also influence them to learn more about our culture. Even in the age of information technology, nothing comes close to face-to-face interaction when the goal is to develop strong cross-cultural skills.

Developing cross-cultural skills will also be one of my priorities as I start my college career. In fact, I could not have been more excited to start my college career because I will have tremendous opportunities to interact with people from all over the world. I hope college doesn’t only provide me world-class education but also helps me build a character that enables me to become a model global citizen.