I love this speaker’s advice to get out and be active! I agree, being outside and exercising does tend to lead to some good ideas coming to me!

Well said Willie. I agree completely! So many times people end of working in fields which were much different than those they studied in. Or, even if they remain in the same general field, their career path shifts dramatically from what their training (e.g. coursework) focused on. In addition to teaching students how to learn, question, and think, I would expand that further that higher education should also teach students how to integrate knowledge and experience from one area in to practical applications in other areas.

Great topic and post, Ashish. Like most things, my response to the "when in Rome" phrase really is "it depends". I like your example of taking cultural writing styles in to account when grading work, but at the same time I also think that work submitted should be compared to the standard for the discipline as well. When we do that, the cultural differences tend to matter less. For instance, scientific writing is different than writing in the sociology field. Technical writing is different than poetry or an ethnography, and so on. You give the example of Asian culture writing being circular in nature. Using that specific example, I see that cultural style might be difficult to for a student to alter to meet the guidelines for a lab report which is more structured and linear, but it may not be as much of a challenge for that student to submit work in a humanities course. If US writing style is more linear, it may be easier for a student to submit a lab report than to alter their more structured writing style to something more creative in nature like the paper for the humanities course. In these instances, I think a professor should take a students cultural writing in to account, but also help them to shape their writing in to the style expected of the field in question.

Going back out to the broader "when in Rome" comment, I think it is important for individuals to be mindful of the cultural expectations and associated behaviors of the environment they are in. For instance, in the US it is generally okay for students to eat and drink in class, but in Iran that would be considered very rude and not allowed (as we learned in class last night). So, while I think we should be mindful of individual cultural differences, it is also important to focus on adjusting our behaviors to the specific environments we are in as well. All in all, now that I have talked in a giant circle...."it depends"...thanks for a great post and getting my mind thinking in so many different directions! :-)