1. It’s a global world, Both Socially And Professionally

Educational institutions and workplaces across the country are pushing for more diverse and inclusive workplaces. Interdisciplinary and cross-cultural teams are essential when facing challenges of the 21st century. Whatever your educational, career, or personal pursuits are, you are sure to encounter people from all over the world. Knowing how to be sensitive to and interact with other cultures is a skill essential to success in the future.

2. It Gives You A Connection

Being aware of other cultures and having these cross-cultural interactions gives you an edge during conversations and networking. Any dull conversation can quickly be turned into a respectful and educational compare and contrast of cultural similarities and differences when you ask your conversation partner about their cultural background, family, and traditions.

3. It Allows You To Avoid Social Problems

During the recent presidential election, the Black Lives Matter Movement, immigration reform, Islamic terror, and women's rights were important factors in the decision for many Americans when they voted. These topics were also a source of disagreement the two candidates. Being aware of and respectful of different cultures allows you to make informed and rational decisions regarding these controversial topics. Understanding cultural differences limits radical behavior that spawns from xenophobia. Being open to diversity also helps to avoid insensitive cultural generalizations that frequently lead to unwanted confrontations.

4. Multicultural Teams

Having a multicultural, interdisciplinary team to work to solve a problem or to work toward a goal has many benefits over a homogeneous team. Having different individuals from differing backgrounds working together helps to bring new ideas and perspectives to the table and can often help in coming to a solution quicker.

5. Did Someone Say Food?

Diverse foods is the best part about diversity! Trying out different dishes from around the world is my favorite to do! Every culture has a different spicing style and often they use ingredients that you never would have thought of using in your own cooking or ingredients you didn't know how to use for cooking. By tasting ethnic foods and experiencing the dining traditions of different countries, you can learn new cooking techniques and increase the variety and creativity of the dishes you cook at home. Chicken and rice can get pretty boring after a while. Plus, trying diverse foods makes it feel like you have travelled the world without spending too much money on airline tickets!