What is diversity? Diversity is a variety, or a range of different things. In this case, we are talking about people. A college campus tends to be one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Everywhere you go on a college campus, there are always students walking about, trying to get to where they need to be. What we overlook is the diversity. Students from all over the world come to the United States to attend one of our many prestigious universities. Studies from Migration Policies show that 15% of college students at universities are from a different country than the US.

In 1823, Alexander Lucius Twilight broke a barrier by being “the first African American to graduate from a U.S. college, receiving his bachelor’s degree from Middlebury College in 1823.” This was a major opening for diversity to slip through. Alexander set a precedent for all future students. More and more students of other nationalities began to go to college and make college campuses more diverse than ever before. As schools begin to get more and more diverse, we also are beginning to see a shift in culture. More and more people are becoming integrated with each other and are learning and understanding each other. Schools around the world are taking pride in how diverse their student body is. We’ve come a long way in the past many years but there is still a ways to go.

The U.S. Department of Labor is predicting that the rise of different races in the workplace will increase in the next 50 or so years, so it’s important to everyone in the workplace to be ready to adapt and be accepting. Along with this, a multitude of studies from Teachers College Columbia and The Washington Post have found that diversity in both the workplace and at Universities is essential for learning and understanding the people around you. Diversity is essential for understanding the people around you. In many cases it might be difficult but with time it gets easier. Diversity can bring people together in a lot of ways that wasn’t possible before. The exposure to people that are different from you makes people much more accepting than if they’re only exposed to people with similar interests. It’s important to have diversity on college campuses because that is where learning thrives and ideas are spread more so than many other places. It’s the epicenter of ideas and learning and creative thinking, which means being able to have a culturally rich and diverse experience is extremely beneficial if it’s available.