I'm currently enrolled in two online courses this summer: Social/Cultural Anthropology and Medical Anthropology. The reduced summer price is basically a steal, so why would you NOT take advantage of the opportunity to learn more, especially if it's more financially accessible?
Most graduate programs across the country used to require that a student completes work in the four fields: Social/Cultural Anthropology, Archaeology, Biological Anthropology, and Linguistic Anthropology. My professor told us this isn't as much the case anymore, especially not in undergraduate programs. It turns out I love love LOVE my courses (despite the heavy readings) because it's basically the study of human culture, which is an aspect of human behavior I've never really had to think about in an academic way. One of the reasons I became a Neuroscience major is because I like trying to understand how and why people think the way they do, but I also enjoy science concepts. By the way, it turns out neuroscience can't explain as much as you might think, but that's a discussion for another day).
A book assigned for both classes is The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman. It's centered around a family from the Hmong people of Southeast Asia and their experiences in the United States, particularly with the healthcare system in the 1980s. It tells a story from the perspective of a cultural minority and their struggle to practice their beliefs and healing practices in contrast with the U.S.'s biomedical system. It's a very interesting read, but somewhat problematic in its monolithic representation of the Hmong.
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| It's a pretty good book |
Cultural competence is the idea that you can learn to be efficient in capacity to interact with a diverse population of people with differing ideas, values, and ways of life than you. The issue with the phrase is that it indicates that this is a skill to master, like learning to run gel electrophoresis. Thing is, you can't just memorize facts about multiple cultures the way you memorize the steps of glycolysis (Which, yes, is the way some courses on cultural competency are structured in some medical schools). What I've learned in my courses so far is that cultural humility might better capture the self-awareness required to interact with people you are unfamiliar and even uncomfortable with. Honestly, self-awareness if a quality that'll take you a long way in any career.
