ArcticTurn Cultural Competency

Before our two cohorts depart – one to Paris for a Luxury & Design Management Immersion, another to Vietnam and Japan for a 4-week internship followed by an industrial immersion week – we ran a 3-session Global Intercultural Competency Certificate Workshop as part of their pre-process.

Not because we had to. Because we’ve seen what happens when you skip it.
You can land in the most immersive environment in the world and still see only 10% of it. Edward T. Hall called it the iceberg. The language, the food, the fashion – that’s the surface. Most students walk right over it without knowing it’s there.
The workshop, led by Dr Anitha Ramanna, wasn’t about cultural dos and don’ts.
It was about something Deardorff – whose framework is used by the United Nations – said more precisely than anyone:

The difference matters. Competence implies you’ve arrived somewhere. Humility means you keep asking. It means replacing “that’s weird” with “I wonder why.” From passive tolerance – enduring difference – to active competence. Recognising dignity. Seeking to understand. Engaging rather than assuming.

Our students will walk into Parisian ateliers and design houses, Vietnamese universities and factories, and Japanese innovation spaces soon. Not just as observers. As participants in something much larger than just mobility.
That’s what pre-process is for.