OGL: 350 Capstone 1

OGL: 350 Capstone

Colton Stanley

Arizona State University

OGL: 350 Capstone 2

My Commitment to My Cultural Mindset

My goal toward improving my cultural mindset is to improve the way I perceive people

who are different than me. To increase my awareness of the troubles that others face and to

empathize with them. This is important to me because I feel that I should be more tolerant and

understanding of others. Growing my CM will allow me to be more comfortable around

everyone that I meet. I would also have an easier time developing good relationships with people

who are different than me. In a team/organizational setting, growing my CM will allow me to

clearly see the benefits that all members of the team can bring without being affected by

stereotypes or biases. I want to commit toward this goal and my plan following the TDK

roadmap will help me to accomplish this.

Review of My Strengths, Weaknesses, and ICMI. Throughout the course, I have done

many self-assessments. From these, I have established a good overview of my current cultural

mindset and where I have strengths that I can build upon. As well as, weakness where

improvement is needed.

Areas of Strength. The areas of strength that I found through the self-assessments have

really opened my eyes on where I stand in this journey towards growing my CM. I learned that I

have a high curiosity for other cultures. I have always had an interest in how other people think

and live their lives. I have a strong pluralistic mindset. Growing up in a multicultural family, I

have been able to see the pros and cons of those cultures as I matured. Because of this, I try to

see the good that all the various cultures in the world can bring to the table, and I try not to focus

on one over the other. I have a strong desire to learn other languages. As a child, my Filipina

grandmother spoke Tagalog to her friends. I remember listening to her speak and trying to wrap

my head around the words. I asked her to teach me, but she never got the opportunity to do so. I
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believe this is where my desire to learn other languages began. I still haven’t found a Tagalog

teacher. But since then, I have studied German and Japanese extensively. I have a strong grasp of

meta-cognition. I am always thinking and trying to understand why things are the way that they

are. Throughout this course, I have been given many opportunities to reflect on my own thoughts

and experiences towards people of other cultures and develop ways to improve my thinking. And

I have a strong desire to improve all aspects of myself. I want to be the best person that I can be

and improving my cultural mindset is one of the many goals I have set for myself.

Areas of Weakness and Opportunity. These assessments have also helped me see my

shortcomings, things that I must improve if I want to achieve my goal. I need to improve my

cultural knowledge. I have studied a few cultures out of curiosity, but I have only studied a few

cultures substantially. I should strive to learn more about the cultures of the people I am

surrounded by so that I may better understand their values and what makes them unique. This is

partially a result of another shortcoming of mine. I have trouble talking to others about their

cultural identity. It makes me uncomfortable as I do not know the best ways to go about asking

such things, and I am most afraid of offending someone. I have difficulty preventing my biases

toward others from entering my thoughts. I sometimes think insensitive thoughts and while I

know that they are wrong and would never say these things out loud, it is still disturbing to me

that I can easily think such things. I also have trouble with conflict. If a person says something

insensitive toward someone, I don’t want to cause conflict with that person. I just nod and say

nothing, but I know that that is just part of the problem.

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Reflection on My Destination. In order to achieve my goal of growing and improving

my cultural mindset, I need to address my lack of cultural knowledge, desire to know more about

the cultures of others, improve how my biases can affect my thoughts, and be more active in

spreading awareness of cultural biases.

SMART Goals. In order to achieve my main goal. I must itemize what needs to be

done and establish short-term, and long-term goals that work towards growing my CM. For the

short-term I should: take the time to ask my peers about their cultural identities and learn what I

can about their culture. Take action when someone I am talking to makes insensitive remarks by

sharing my insights of biases and stereotypes to help improve their cultural awareness. I should

reflect when any insensitive thoughts pop into my head. Then determine why I think that and

how to improve my way of thinking. For the long-term I should: continue my study of other

languages. Brushing up on and increasing my fluency in the languages that I have studied, and

considering other languages to study. Making a major effort toward increasing my cultural

knowledge by studying as much as I can about cultures across the globe. If I have the

opportunity, I should also seek to travel abroad to further broaden my horizons and grow my

cultural mindset.

Strategies. For my short-term goals, I primarily need the courage to take the first step.

To desire to leave my comfort zone and seek to improve my cultural knowledge and awareness. I

will make an effort to talk to someone about their culture every day. I will have an open

discussion with someone if they express an insensitive opinion. I will strive to adjust my own

insensitive thoughts and biases through self-reflection. For my long-term goals, these will take

some time and resources. Learning languages isn’t easy without a good teacher or living in the

country where that language is spoken. I will seek online language resources and determine a
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plan of study to improve my German and Japanese. In order to improve my cultural knowledge, I

will seek out documentaries and books on cultures from across the globe. And make a list of

ones to watch and read every month. Travelling abroad is something I have always wanted to do.

Once I am finished with college, I have planned on visiting other countries. My friends and I

have talked about visiting Japan and Korea after we all graduate and when we can get the money

together.

Do. I have made some steps toward achieving my goals. I have talked with one of my co-

workers about her life in the Philippines. She has told me much that I didn’t know about life

there. How much community and hospitality there is despite the high amount of poverty. I have

also begun to study Japanese again. I have found a good study book for learning Kanji characters

and have made it a goal to learn five new characters a day. When searching for books about to

improve my cultural knowledge and awareness, I came across a book titled Enemies in Love by

Alexis Clark. The book is the biography of Elinor Powell, an African-American Army nurse

stationed at a prisoner of war camp in Florence, Arizona. There, she would meet Frederick

Albert, a German P.O.W. who would be the first white-man to treat her like a human being. This

book taught me aspects about the life of African-American servicewomen that I never knew.

Such as how black-nurses weren’t allowed to treat white-soldiers and P.O.W.s were the

exception. The book also covers the difficulties Elinor had joining the army as a woman of color

in 1940s America.
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Review. I haven’t had the chance to do too much toward growing my cultural mindset

yet. But I plan on talking about the cultures of three of my co-workers by the end of next month,

reaching at-least a middle-school level of Japanese Kanji by the end of this year, and after I

finish reading Enemies in Love, I want to read the four great classical novels of China: Journey

to the West, Water Margin, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and Dream of the Red Chamber. I

want to read all of these also by the end of this year. This will be a long journey, but I am really

having fun with it. I am going beyond my comfort zone and learning much that I never knew.