For the diversity event I went to the STEM diversity and inclusion event. Before I went to the event I was slightly worried about attending because I wasn’t exactly sure what I should of been expecting from it. I wouldn’t say I am very familiar with diversity and inclusion efforts but I am also not completely blind as to what goes on around me. I have heard some of the stories of what some of my friends have had to go through before coming to OSU as well and problems that have happened here as well. The feeling of nervousness about the event probably stemmed from the fact that I feel that I have had a very privileged life so I haven’t had to go through the same trials and ordeals as my peers around me.
The event itself was informative but at the same time it felt like I have heard the same information repeated back to me in my other classes such as my survey classes. It was also awkward at times when no one on either side of the room so you just had the same five people responding to questions or reading responses off of the board. I found some of the things that are considered to be kinds of privilege surprising mostly because I never really thought about them in the past. For example one of the examples the speaker gave was how many books we had in our house growing up and I never really thought that there are plenty of people out there that didn’t have the same access to reading that I did. Another one that was interesting to me was attractiveness, which I am slightly still confused about since people can have different ideas of what makes someone attractive. I feel the most important point I learned from the event was that it doesn’t help for me to just feel sorry or bad for people that didn’t have the same privileges that I had but you should use it to go out of your way and try to help in some way, even just spreading knowledge about it can be beneficial since some are safer when giving their opinions.
For the STEM field I think it’s important that we consider the impact we have on inclusion. I feel STEM has a preconceived notion that it’s more of a male dominated field so it’s important to show that’s not the case anymore. I can’t really speak for my classmate or friends for how diversity affects them but for me it’s hard to relate to others that different upbringings than me since we don’t necessarily share the same privileges that I had. For the university I feel there are options for people to go out and learn about how important diversity and inclusion is but these are just optional and not all students will take advantage of these programs so the campus does offer enough resources pertaining to diversity and inclusion it’s just wether or not students choose to use them ore not. During the event I didn’t have any of my beliefs challenged but I do feel that a lot of the students that were there were afraid to speak because most of us didn’t want to say something wrong and accidentally offend someone.