Germany Travel Day

I have been to number of countries, but I am extremely excited about traveling to Germany. I have participated in two study abroad opportunities in undergrad, in which I traveled to Brazil and Italy. However, neither one of them took on a topic as influential as migration and we didn’t have formal class meetings to encourage discussion.

Initially, when deciding to take this class I was just looking at it from the perspective that I can knock out a class and my annual big trip that I take each year. Yayyy, me! I was dumbfounded on the journey that we would embark on thus far. Now we are about to experience the other portion of our journey in another country.  In class or lead by discussion, we have explored anything from immigration, citizenship, caring leadership, social change models, learning about other countries, learning about our other classmates’ careers and backgrounds. This class has so much more to offer than the 3 credits afforded to it for completion.

These last couple of weeks have been rough for me. I was having health issues and work has been weighing heavy on me. Also, I didn’t feel that I had all of knowledge pertaining to what the class was demanding.  Therefore, I would lag in participating in the blackboard discussions. I had never really gotten involved in immigration issues. I was aware of what was going on and felt sympathetic to the pain that they are enduring. I am even more understanding, because I am a minority and we deal with a significant amount of biases. Half of the class is in education and other half in Human Resources. I am working towards my master’s in human resources, but I have never actually worked in the field. I work for a government entity and we don’t deal with these issues directly in the workplace. So, it has been hard for me to establish an angle for my final paper.

So now I am putting my big girl panties on and taking on a different view. What would other cultures look for me as their Human Resource Specialist? What compassion do I look for in reaching out for answers? How can my little self-make a big difference?