Seeing Cultures Through Film

Intercultural communication is the idea that people need to communicate between cultures in order to solve problems that may affect many cultures at once. It is also the idea that communicating across cultures can improve businesses and to reach out to other cultures through understanding them and not just transplanting one culture's ideas into another, but actually changing it to fit into the new culture. The movie Trainspotting is an excellent movie in depicting a culture in a way that is not stereotypical. It follows a group of friends in Edinburgh, Scotland who are heroin addicts and are from the poorer region of Edinburgh. This is one of the major themes of the film, exploration of the urban poverty and squalor in "culturally rich" Edinburgh. It shows the viewer a different side of the Scottish culture that the average traveler would never see, and it just goes to show that every culture has similar sub-cultures that other cultures have. It is also a great film in showing the everyday dialect and words that the average person in Scotland uses in daily conversations. 

21st Century Skills

21st century skills are useful to anyone who is planning on going into any career field. Many of the skills are not only instrumental to my career choice as a historian but also in my daily life. Solving complex open-ended problems, thinking critically and making judgements, and communicating and collaborating are all skills that I have to use daily in researching and writing for history. I have to check the credibility of a document and then figure out how it relates to my thesis. The papers are usually open-ended because much of it is up to interpretation. Some skills such as taking charge of financial, health and civic responsibilities can be crucial to anyone. Personally at 20 years old, I am already looking into getting a financial adviser. Not because I have a lot of money but because I want my financial matters taken care of now so that when I am on my own after college it will be one less thing to worry about.  Understanding cultures is another skill that I think everyone should acquire. It is not only interesting to learn new cultures but it can help when working on a global and international scale. This trip should help us understand and appreciate some of the other cultures out there besides our own.