Content Page #3

Gerri Jergensen

                                                                 Dedicated

Everything I have done in my life I have put in 100% of myself. I excel when challenged
with new programs and techniques, my type A personality comes through in everything I do. I have been blessed in my life with the opportunities to give back and commit to helping others. I truly believe that in ones life that helping others is what gives a person satisfaction and a feeling of accomplishment.

I put this same practice into my education that at the age of fifty I was able to finally do.
College was new to me and quite an awesome achievement. I learned something new every day, from computers, research, and exploring different cultures and what they have to offer. One culture was the Deaf community, ASL was my language of choice taken at Valencia College. I learned the difficult obstacles that this community must go through just to be apart of the world around them outside of their Deaf community.  I learned the language and how to make a connection in their community. I also attended many events such as movie night, comedy night, and church, all of these events invited me into their world without any prejudged ideals of me not being able to communicate at their level.

I also committed myself to researching different cultures, and their belief systems and how they presented their heritage through what important to their unique cultures. Quilting process by African American and Native Americans, and the life and skills of Chinese Acrobats where just a sample of knowledge I acquired while investigating their cultures. The only way to completely understand and commit to living and working with other cultures is understanding their obstacles and strengths to survive within their own community and to stand strong within the world around them. 

In the world that we live in today it is very important to be open to other cultures and what is important in their lives. Everyone has a different perspective on life and through my education I found that by dedicating myself to understand other members of the community and their traditions and heritage helps find a common ground that we can all contribute to.

I have include three projects that I have done to represent my aspirations of dedication to understanding different people and understanding how unique people are.