#uc student

So excited!

I leave for my third year of school tomorrow. And for the first time without my parents.

I perceive diversity to be something that differentiates everyone from one another; whether being someone’s ethnicity, race, social class, gender, age, and/or religious belief. I feel like UCSD portrays a definition of diversity that only focuses on race and ethnicity. As a student of color, I often feel ostracized on campus because now my academic performance is judged based on how well of a Latin@ student I am.

My own definition: condition/instance of having people of different race/ethnicity, gender, sex, socioeconomic status, etc in one common place. I identify as Hispanic. No, Berkeley markets itself as a diverse institution with a diverse student population and staff, but in reality the numbers of those being hired/admitted by the university are quite low. Identifying as a person of color, I notice the low numbers when attending lecture or discussion and realizing I’m one of a handful of students with different backgrounds from the majority white/Asian student body (though you could argue that Asians are a minority because of the glass ceiling perplexity).

Diversity is the coming together of different ethnic and social backgrounds to make our environment a more accepting place. I’m Black. I feel that while we are getting there we still have a long ways to go before getting to a place of “diversity”.

“I define diversity as having variety of races. I identify as an Asian person. I do not think UC Santa Cruz defines diversity because the school has an overwhelming number of the majority group.”