Student story: College offers exposure to diversity
About this video
A student from Palo Alto, a predominantly white area, describes going to a historically black college and realising that black people are not all one thing: there are Haitians, African Americans and people from the diaspora. The experience challenged his stereotypes and taught him to be open to different people at home and at work.
You'll be able to
- explain how attending college challenged this student's stereotype.
- define stereotype and diaspora in my own words.
- describe how a lesson from college can be used in other parts of life.
Key words
- Historically black college
- A US college founded mainly to educate black students, often called an HBCU.
- Predominately
- Mostly; making up the largest part.
- Stereotype
- A fixed, over-simple idea that all people in a group are the same.
- Diaspora
- People whose families come from one homeland but now live spread across other countries.
- Ignorance
- Not knowing or understanding something.
Transcript
- So from my personal perspective, I go to a historically black college, and so being from Palo Alto, California, a predominately white area, I thought that being black meant one thing, you know, that stereotypical idea. And so when I went to college and I'm surrounded by all these black people, I'm realizing that, you know, everybody's different.
So there's Hatians, there's African-American people, there's people that are from the diaspora, and I like that it challenged my ignorance and it made me be open to other people and not stereotyping people, or not thinking that all people are one thing. So college really opened my eyes to different types of people, and now even when I go, when I come back home, start a new job, I'm trying to be open to people just because I learned that in college.
That's really what gets you by.
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