Intercultural Workshops
Students may attend an in-person workshop designed to support students’ ability to adjust and be successful in a new environment. Studying abroad can be transformative for students who commit to developing intercultural skills and mindsets. By engaging with local communities and embracing new perspectives, students gain deeper insight, creativity, empathy, and adaptability. This kind of growth not only enriches their personal lives but also gives them a valuable edge in an increasingly global job market.
Events and Workshops
Building Cultural Competence
Intercultural competence is a skillset and mindset connected to successful interactions with people from different cultures, whether you live, work or study abroad. These competencies are also key to success beyond college.
This free Canvas course is for students going abroad or current international students who want to grow deeper in their capacity to mindfully engage across cultural differences and develop habits of awareness and reflection that will maximize their experience abroad.
Building Cultural Awareness Workshop
Knowing how to engage with others from different cultures is more than following a list of DOs and DON’Ts - it’s about having an intercultural skillset and mindset that is constantly growing, even beyond your time abroad. This interactive workshop will increase your awareness of your way of viewing the world, help you anticipate the way cultural differences will challenge you, give you tools to approach cultural differences from a lens of learning and curiosity, and build a foundation to engage effectively and appropriately across cultures.
Additional Resources
The Cultural Analysis Toolkit, developed by Dr. Deidre Mendez at The University of Texas at Austin, is useful for any student in any program to practice self-guided reflection and problem-solving within new cultural contexts. All materials are free to download.
Open Mind is a short educational program based on the work of psychologist Dr. Jonathan Haidt at New York University. It is designed to develop awareness of cognitive and cultural biases, grow intellectual humility, and foster engagement across difference - all great intercultural skills!
What's Up with Culture? may look a little old, but it is a great resource to learn more about how culture (your own and others') impacts your success learning and functioning in a new context. It was developed by Dr. Bruce le Brack at the University of the Pacific, who is one of the leaders of the field of Intercultural Communication.
The Country Comparison Tool allows you to see what similarities and differences exist between national cultures along six different dimensions, based on research by Dutch professor Geert Hofstede and his son Geertjan Hofstede.
Further Reading
- Deardorff, D. K. (Ed.). (2009). The Sage handbook of intercultural competence / edited by Darla K. Deardorff ; foreword by Derek Bok. (1st ed.). Sage Publications.
- Hofstede, G., & Hofstede, G. J. (2005). Cultures and organizations : software of the mind / Geert Hofstede and Gert Jan Hofstede. (Rev. and expanded 2nd ed.). McGraw-Hill.
- Storti, C. (2017). Figuring Foreigners Out: a practical guide.
- (Twentieth anniversary edition.). Nicholas Brealey Publishing.
- Storti, C., & Books24x7, I. (2002). The art of crossing cultures, second edition Craig Storti. (2nd ed.). Intercultural Press.
- Trompenaars, A., & Hampden Turner, C. (1997). Riding the waves of culture : understanding cultural diversity in business. (2nd ed.). Nicholas Brealey Publishing.
- Vande Berg, M., Paige, R. M., & Lou, K. H. (2012). Student learning abroad : what our students are learning, what they’re not, and what we can do about it / Edited By Michael Vande Berg, R. Michael Paige and Kris Hemming Lou. (First Edition.). Stylus Publishing, LLC.
- Ward, C. A., Bochner, S., & Furnham, A. (2001). The psychology of culture shock / Colleen Ward, Stephen Bochner and Adrian Furnham. (2nd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203992258
Videos
- Riding the Waves of Culture by Dr. Fons Trompenaars
- Cross Cultural Communication by Pellegrino Riccardi
- The Danger of a Single Story ;by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- The Art of Cognitive Blindspots by Kyle Eschen