On a campus of 40,000 faces, it can be common to feel lost. Two UW-Madison students launched a conversation-based class to build community among the diverse student body.
Mackenzie Carroll and Tammy Tian have worked together with a group of students over the past year to bring Project Pengyou, an initiative that brings international and domestic students together, to UW-Madison.
The main goal of the organization is to create a comfortable environment where students of different cultures can share ideas and collaborate. Carroll said the members all need to feel included to elicit the best conversations.
“One of our members told us this was the first time she felt like she had a family on campus,” Carroll said. “Providing that inclusive environment is really important to encourage ideas.”
Tian said the inclusive environment helps students look past typical cultural barriers through teamwork.
“Because we focus on collaborative work through our projects, you have to look beyond stereotypes and differences that you see, and actually have a dialog,” Tian said. “When you work together with someone you realize the way they think, their perspectives and what’s important to them.”
Through traveling to China and then working with international students in the organization, Carroll said Project Pengyou opened her eyes to problems she didn’t previously notice.
“I think you can look at a variety of issues, like race or gender, any of those issues, if you don’t have to worry about it, sometimes you just don’t see it until it’s in your face and you’re the one personally experiencing it or you know someone who is,” Carroll said.
Tian said the challenges of attending a public university, like working around supervising professors’ heavy workloads and being underestimated as students, made starting the class more difficult, but also helped her realize each students’ capabilities.
“I feel like university students aren’t being challenged enough,” Tian said. “We’re here for a reason: We’re pretty smart, we know how to think and we can problem solve, but there aren’t very many clear outlets for where to apply those abilities.”
