Multiculturalism of Houston benefits UH campus and community

I remember when I was preparing to move to Houston, I was scared, lost, confused, excited, happy — it was a crazy mix of feelings, actually. To be honest, I didn’t have any expectations of what I would find in this city. As a foreign student, I must say that you have some challenges when you move to a different country: the language, the lifestyle and, of course, the cultural differences.

When I arrived here, my first pleasant surprise was that Houston is not only an energy capital or the home of ZZ Top, but also a big multicultural city. You can feel and see it in the streets, in the neighborhoods, looking at the people and, of course, at UH.

UH was recently ranked as the campus with the fifth most ethnic diversity. Murietta Flores, office assistant for the Council of Ethnic Organizations at UH, says this is important for students “because these cultures add exciting new perspectives to life around us and help students to learn about cultures from all over the world.  Everyone is different and from these differences we can learn new things.”

This can be proved in our daily lives. You can enrich the experience by learning from and listening to those whose experiences, beliefs and perspectives are different from yours. This will give us the chance to improve our intellectual and social environment and will help us to develop our personal growth.

Sometimes, we do not have time to attend museum exhibitions or festivals in the city, but that is no reason not to get involved and discover the multicultural side of Houston. The CEO is one of UH’s associations that has a commitment to campus diversity and also promotes cultural interaction between students from different ethnic groups.

“We always have very inclusive events that teach students of different cultures,” Flores said. “We’ve hosted sushi lessons in the past that taught students the symbolic importance of sushi in Japanese cultures. Many of our events are new and exciting, so students will be eager to learn about different cultures. Our events help students meet other students from their own cultures and new ones.”

In the other side of the story, we have the question of why diversity matters in the labor field. Simply put, we all know that the most important resource in a company is people, so if a company wants to be successful in the global marketplace, it needs to attract the right skills, minds and resources, which means diversity. With this in mind, we can find many organizations that encourage and help students to be part of a company in a foreign country, which helps students to get professional experience.

One of this organizations is AIESEC. It has a presence in 124 countries, helping over 50,000 members from all around the world to participate in international internships.

“The international students promote their cultures and vision and teach people here about their countries, and then other students go abroad and learn about other cultures as well,” said Naktia Campbell, vice president of communication for AIESEC Houston.

This experience of being part of a diverse environment in a company has benefits when students back to their home country and try to look for a job. Now they have a different perspective and vision of what other companies do, which can improve the business at their home countries. According to Campbell, “you need to understand how business works on a global level in order to stay relevant.”

So if we are in a multicultural city and in a multicultural school, let’s take advantage of it and not just learn from the cultures, but also prepare ourselves to be better and more competitive professionals. If you are an international student like me, join the association of your country to help you to get into the diversity of Houston. You can find events offered by the CEO here.

If you are also thinking of bringing some diversity to your work life, you can check AIESEC’s web page to get involved. Right now they are recruiting students and next month they will offer an information session. If you want to hear from students who have worked and studied abroad, check out AIESEC’s November events.

Opinion columnist Mara Martinez is a supply chain and logistics graduate student and may be reached at [email protected]