Zachau 1

Colin Zachau

Ms. Passino

Diversity Reflection Paper

20 February

Diversity Reflection Paper

Befriending others. Its an easy task to begin with but can get quite difficult if there are

noticeable differences between the two of you or very few similarities. It could even make it

impossible to better that friendship unless one or both of you can learn to open up to the others

differences. Thus it is important to learn how to open up and adapt to others differences, to

utilize those differences to strengthen your friendship.

The first part of understanding differences is understanding what your positionality is,

that being what makes you, you. For me thats being a white male thats physically weaker then

most, but I have got connections, such as being partnered with Texas Wolfdog Project, Paws

Club from Cy Woods, and several more. These connections and the skills, knowledge, and

opportunities I have gained from them helped shape my identity and makes me stand out. Sadly

what I have gained cannot be expressed through my appearance as most people could easily

assume I am lazy from my chubby stomach and laid back demeanor. This however could not be

further from the truth as my coworkers can all attest that I am a hard worker and very outgoing.

The same could be said for how I interacted with my fellow classmates as we all shared our

positionalities, and learned what makes us different. This assignment has reassured my beliefs

and knowledge of how to interact with others, beyond just simple conversations to pass the time,

such as how to make a conversation go beyond simple ice breakers and into making connections.

These being to ask simple non-intrusive questions at first and then narrowing it down till you
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both have something in common to bond over. Then ask questions that are not too personal that

will get you interesting answers, things that will help you really understand who your talking too

and what their interests are.

So to recap, it is easy to break the ice and to get along with someone for a while, but to

really get to know them you gotta bond not just over similarities but also your differences. While

similarities are great, only differences will truely strengthen your bond and allow the two of you

to get even closer together.