Appreciation of all That is Communication

As a student registered under the Centre for Applied Linguistics, I have definitely become more immersed and interested in various fields and potential career paths in the future. Coming from a background where I am very much used to being around people from different nationalities, cultures and walks of life. it never occurred to me how different means of communication is across such a diverse array of cultures. This is something that I only began to realise after attending the different module lectures, exploring different supplementary and core readings and generally exchanging opinions and views with my course mates. Communication is immensely important in any social interaction and it is necessary for the exchanging of information or general expression of feelings and views in general. Communication occurs everyday, from small scales to larger scales and sometimes it is definitely taken for granted especially in an intercultural perspective.

Based on the knowledge that I want to be able to pursue a career in a large international corporation; I am very much well versed in the fact that this will entail having to interact with people across the world and I am very thankful for my background and exposure in an international school and basically embodying everything possible as a third culture kid. When meeting new people they always seem very perplexed when they ask me what I am studying and I respond with the lengthy, “Language, culture and communication”. Many just assumed that it simply revolves around different languages and that I am automatically multi0lingual, however to clear some of these presumptions up, while it does highly involve the appreciation of various language systems, it also involves a deeper understanding of sociolinguistic attributes and behavioural psychology across cultures. Indeed it is a very unique course, and this was on of the selling points and is one of the main characteristics of what caught my eye when I was applying to study at Warwick. Of all the universities I applied to under UCAS, all the other 5 were under business and marketing studies apart from Warwick and I can assure you that I have no regrets with my decision. As this is such a transdisciplinary course, which draws on skills and aspects from various fields within the social sciences and humanities, I constantly feel as if my preexisting skills and experiences growing up in six different countries around the world are further being enriched by the academical experiences I have undergone during my time at Warwick.