Intercultural Relations

I have said it before, perhaps on this blog, and I will say it again: I live a sheltered life. I grew up going to Catholic school -- grade school and high school, and for the most part was always in school with people who were similar to me -- middle and upper middle class, Christian, Caucasians. When I got to high school, my classmates grew in diversity, but generally I was still with the same crowd. It wasn't until I began working that I started to meet people of other cultures. My first job was at Kings Island. I started in 2007, during the spring of my sophomore year. That first summer was awesome. I met so many different people who grew up in totally different worlds. No longer was I hanging out with the same sort of people every day. Each time I went into work, I feel like my outlook on life kind of expanded. My co-workers were very diverse. Usually when I heard the word diversity, I think about a mix of ethnicities. While it is true that I was meeting people of different races, I was, more importantly, meeting people of all different cultures. Some kids came from wealthy families, others not so much. Some were only children while others had lots of siblings who worked in the park as well. One of the most beneficial parts of my job at Kings Island is learning to be open to people of different cultures. I don't know who someone is just by looking at them and as such, I have to be open and respectful right off the bat. This is true for coworkers and guests of the park. Over the past four seasons (such a long time!) I've really grown as a person and became a much more open and definitely more culturally competent.

In line for Maverick at Cedar Point!



At AMIS, Dayana gets to meet people from all different cultures. At Kings Island, all of us have common goals in mind related to our jobs. At AMIS, the kids are united in the fact that they are immigrants and don't necessarily speak English as their first language. In fact, most of the kids don't. They are able to see each other as classmates, whereas if they were in a regular school, other students might primarily see them as immigrants. Attending AMIS will definitely help Dayana to be more culturally competent because she interacts with people of different cultures everyday. If the rest of us were forced to work together and with people of other cultures everyday, we would definitely be more culturally competent. Having common goals unites people in ways that we could never imagine..

I've used it before, but it really shows the diversity at AMIS