TRAVEL AND EMPATHY REFLECTION

ABOUT

Joining and working on themes through different events and activities in Global Studies has made me much more aware about the ingroups and out groups of society.  Overall, I feel that I have become a more empathetic person since joining Global Studies, on both a small and large scale. This mostly derives from my constantly expanding knowledge of the world around me.  Before I joined Global Studies, I feel like I knew very little about the struggles the world were facing and the different viewpoints that were involved in them, beyond what I saw online and on T.V. As I attend different seminars and events and gain more knowledge about these things, I have felt myself becoming more empathetic.  One specific example that I am thinking of is Dorje Dolma’s seminar, where we learned about her experiences as her culture overlapped with other cultures. Originally, we had been doing a lot of reading about her and online exploring, but it wasn’t until I met her that I felt more immersed in a culture I had never even thought about before.  As she shared her art, life story and experiences with medicine with us, I felt a closer connection to a part of the world that I didn’t know very much about, and I found myself being more empathetic as she shared her different viewpoints.  
I have also had experiences with this sort of travel empathy as I have traveled around the world with my family.  Although most of the travel we have done would most likely be considered closer to the tourist side (France, England, Mexico, etc.), I enjoyed experiencing different aspects of the world that I originally had been unsure about, including different types of foods and traditions.