Harnessing Uniqueness and Finding Similar People

Abstract

Chapter 6 addresses race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, and other aspects of diversity that shape individual students’ expectations and experiences of college life. Some students find the university to have greater diversity than their past experiences, while others come from more diverse settings than the university. Many students struggle for the first time to understand how they fit in and how to make sense of others’ attitudes, values, and perspectives. Students reflect on experiences with inclusion and exclusion during college and come to contextualize these experiences. Readers learn how to harness their identities as a personal strength, while also finding others who are similar enough to understand and support their perspective, values, or interests.