Leveraging Diversity

The diversity event that I went to was called Leveraging Diversity. When I walked into the lecture hall I became very nervous because it was full of academic adults all formally dressed, I was in a sweatshirt. I was also very nervous when he started putting complicated formulas in his power point. I'm a Kinesiology major, not an Engineering major. I was very scared.

But once he started his lecture I became more comfortable. He talked about how having a diverse working population is important because it is the right thing to do, it is the law, and diverse people bring diverse ideas and view points. With those diverse ideas and view points, a company is better able to make predictions. My favorite part of the lecture was when he explained how working with a group of people who all had the same ideas may be easier and more fun, however, it is not as effective as working with a very diverse group of people. I find this very true because when you have a group of people who all think the same, there will be a lot of conformity and very few original ideas but you have a lot of fun because everyone thinks like you. Yet, if you get a large number of diverse people all bringing different perspectives, that is where the ideas come from, there are more debates and a lot more progressive thinking. Although this is usually less fun because of the debates and the possible hurt feelings, it is the best way to come up with the best, most original ideas and the most accurate prediction models.

I really liked the guy I saw for the Diversity even and am very glad it was a requirement (otherwise I would have never attended something like that.)