The Deep Stuff

I had the opportunity to meet with Isabela yesterday and talk to her about some very interesting topics. I also got to explain some things with her about the English language so that was pretty cool. We were talking about some lighthearted topics when college came out. She asked me what the difference was between college and a university. This kind of caught me off guard because I just think of a university as being college. “The college experience.” I had to try to explain both the denotational and the conational definitions of “college.” I explained that when referring to college as an actual institution it is normally a community college. This is where a person goes to get their basics out of the way or an associate’s degree. Then I went on to explain to her that a university is different in the sense that a person attends a university to attain a bachelor’s degree or higher. I then went on to explain to her that when referring that you’re at “college” it is the broad encompassment of it all. It took me a minute but I was able to explain it all and that was pretty cool. I think what was even better though was the conversations we had after. I asked her what she wanted to do with her degree when she graduates in Brazil. She informed me that she would like to work for an agricultural company. She then informed me that women aren’t common in the agricultural business but that she was bound and determined to make her mark. That was one of the reasons she is here learning English. I thought that was really awesome. Then she asked me how woman were here in different areas and we began to discuss woman equality and how it worked in the United States. It was pretty cool because we both began to discuss our views on it and came to the conclusion that we both have similar outlooks. We believe that whether you’re a man or a woman, the best people for the job should be the ones doing it. I also just found respect for her in the fact that she has the focus to push herself to succeed in a male dominated area and how she wants to prove that statement correctly. It was really cool to get to discuss these deeper topics like we did. We’ve been learning from each other on these lighter basis so it definitely was intriguing and really helped me personally to understand more about both my world and hers through the conversations that we were having together. It also makes me think if people are trying to change the norm in multiple countries now, what will this world look like in fifty years?