Diversity

Last week we had a guest speaker, Denise Williams, who spoke to us about diversity. She had such a great approach to the topic and she definitely made it interesting and fun. I feel like she opened my eyes so much to diversity and made me realize things I have never realized before. The activities she had us participate in showed us so much about stereotypes and how people are constantly prejudged because of their appearance. She told us it was a natural process that our brain just automatically does, but the difference we can make is to not act on these stereotypes and treat people differently just because they look a certain way.
Denise Williams was very enthusiastic and seemed very comfortable discussing this topic. she even gave us advice for how to deal with situations that may be offensive to myself or others around me. I know that all of this information will come in handy for us as peer mentors because, no matter what, we will encounter diversity, and it is important for us to know how to handle situations it may toss our way.
I never realized how stereotypes truly influence peoples' opinions of people, and it really makes me wonder what stereotypes are held about myself that I do not know about. This lecture was a great eye opener and I think everyone really enjoyed it, I know I did for sure.