Cultural Anthropology was one of my favorite courses taken as an undergraduate student. I was inspired to take this course because I feel that I was uneducated in understanding other cultures. With a desire to study abroad, I felt that this course would be an adequate background of different cultures so I would know how to act appropriately. My takeaway from this course is that no culture or way of living is "weird". Instead, it's different from our norm. Thinking that other cultures are weird shows an ethnocentric perspective. The whole course focuses on cultural relativism, which is the idea that cultures should be viewed under their own terms, as opposed to someone with predisposed thoughts about a culture. After taking this course, I learned how to approach other cultures with a blank slate, while respectfully integrating oneself into the culture.
