CDE is an interesting course about the different cultures in the West and the East. It helps us make comparisons and learn more about each culture. As most of us do live in a country in Asia, we are most probably more familiar with the East and its culture than that of the West. Learning about it would help us have a broader range of knowledge of the cultures of the world and also make comparisons and differentiate between the two cultures.
Through the Cultural Differentiation Elective, I want to have a deeper understanding of both the Western and the Eastern cultures, and which parts of them are different and which parts similar. I also want to learn about how different aspects of the two cultures are applicable in our world today, and how they are relevant in the modern society. Through this course, I want to be able to look at things in different perspectives. I also want to learn more about the differences and similarities in the moral values of the United States of America and China, and how this has affected the modern culture and way of thinking of the people in these two countries today.
We learnt about the importance of the knowledge of different cultures, the American core values, and Google during the CDE classes this week. I find the core American values really interesting as I knew little about it before (other than freedom and democracy, which is the stereotypical American values on the Internet), and learnt that some of them are not very different from the Eastern ones, such as hard work being rewarded and competitiveness and striving to be better than others, which are very common in Asian countries. We also learnt about the way Google designs its workplace not just for efficiency and productivity, but for the employees' comfort and enjoyment, to make them stay at the workplace not just to work more, but also to keep the brilliant ideas the highly-intelligent employees come up with inside of Google. Google also has its unique way of making people interact and brainstorm, which may lead to new ideas. New ideas also come by with Google allowing its employees to have one day per week to work on their own projects. Google also actually listens to employees' ideas and use them. In conclusion, Google has its own unique ways of treating its employees for the benefit of the company.
In conclusion, I feel that the Cultural Differentiation Elective is a very meaningful and enriching course, and I am looking forward to learning more about both the Western and Eastern cultures in the rest of the lessons of this year.
