Diversity as a Part of College Communities

Jinhyun Kim

Many colleges in the United States have large campuses that form each community within them with a lot of different people including international students from all over the world. Diversity has become a big part of these communities. Therefore, colleges are trying several methods to help students that are from other countries in their adaptation to American culture and college communities.

According to the article "Orientation for Whites" by Scott Jaschik in Inside Higher Ed, many colleges started to make international students to attend a mandatory orientation for them prior to the orientation for all the students. The article also presents the two sides of opinions about this program by colleges. People who are in favor of this program suggest that this is a very good way to help foreign students feel comfortable in American colleges because it is making those students to meet many other people around the campus in advance. Also students can talk and share about differences in cultures. People who are against this idea claim that this additional orientation for international students will make them already separated from American students since the orientation is for international students, specifically and difficult to get along with each others.

In addition, colleges tend to focus mostly on international undergraduate students, especially on international undergraduate freshmen, by additional orientation in effort of promoting diversity. However, college communities consist of a large amount of people, and also there are many transfer students and graduate students that from other countries. If they are new to this culture, just like international freshmen students, they will appreciate the opportunities to accommodate better in new culture. For these people, colleges can have more and various events that can make diversity become a bigger part of campus communities.

I think colleges in the United States have a great advantage over the colleges in other countries. Not to mention the huge program of foreign exchange students, there is a lot of people from all over the world, and many of them are already everywhere in society of the United States. Colleges should be aware of this, and if make diversity as a bigger part of the community, they will receive numerous benefits for everyone sooner or later.