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Kara- I found your post interesting and what you wrote about your friends made me thinking about my own friends.  First I was thinking about the friends that I have here at Bryn Mawr and realized that, like you, they are all very different in background and personality.  When I bring a problem to them, they tend to offer different ideas and perspectives, and I find that very interesting and helpful because it makes me rethink my own perspectives about the issue.  Next, I thought about my friends in Japan.  While my friends in Japan are all Japanese and not at all ethnically or racially diverse, I would say that they are still different in personality and thus tackle issues and problems in different manners.  Finally, I thought about my friends here AND my friends in Japan and realized that the within group difference that I first noted was nothing compared to the difference I felt between the two groups.

During class, there was a lot of discussion about how we tend to only think about diversity as racial or cultural diversity etc., and there was some discussion on whether we could truly put these differences aside and just think about diverse thinkers. While people can certainly be different-minded even when they come from the same culture, it seems to me that we tend to be so much more different in how we approach problems when we come from different cultures (this is probably touching on what Ian wrote about “degrees of difference”) because of the different education that we receive.  By education, I don’t just mean what we learn or what we do in the classroom, but also what we learn   from our parents, the media, and all the people in the society.  In the past when I was talking to some friends from home I have brought up issues that I had been really struggling through, together with my friends.  What I have found interesting is that in the majority of the cases, my friends from home didn’t even understand why we felt that the issue was such a big problem!  So, I guess what I am wondering is, if we are all agreeing that something is important enough to take the time to think about, are we really all that different?