Last Wednesday, I attended the Rose Cafe where Andre Simores spoke about his home country, Brazil. I learned a lot of things about Brazil that I had not known before, including Brazil is the 5th largest country, and there are a variety of ecosystems, from the rainforest near the Amazon River to rural and agricultural areas of Minas Gerais. Simores and his wife also discussed the differences in schooling between Brazil and the US. In Brazil, those who can afford it send their children to private high schools in order to ensure they will get a full ride to a public college, while in the United States, usually those who attend private high schools attend private colleges.

The most important difference that I observed was the cultural differences that occurred even just within the talk itself. Simores was obviously still in the process of learning English and giving a talk in front of a room full of native English speakers was probably no easy task. I took French in high school for 4 years and barely felt comfortable presenting in front of my class during this time, so I would not have been surprised if Simores was a bit nervous by the presentation. It was easy to see some of the cultural differences, even in the way Simores spoke and presented his information, and even working through the presentation doing Google searches. It really emphasized the differences between American and Brazilian culture, as using a laptop and doing Google searches is second nature for almost all Americans, and really got me thinking and considering the living circumstances of other places. In addition, the language differences were evident as certain English phrases were different from Portuguese phrases, even if they have the same meaning. It is very easy at Cornell to get wrapped up in schoolwork, social life and extracurricular activities and forget about other cultures, but I think this talk reminded me to consider others more, and was a learning experience for both sides.