Caroline McCrady Culture

 Minnesota Culture

          

           Eagan Experience

Football game at my high school 

Meme of Minnesotan accent

Growing up in Eagan, MN I wasn’t exposed to a lot of diversity. Many of my neighbors were white collar families with high expectations for their children. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, Eagan is a city of 64,206 residents with 81.5% of those residents being white. With a graduation rate of 94%, receiving a top notch education and continuing on to some secondary form of education is a primary part of our culture. On the last day of school, all of the seniors wear t-shirts of the colleges that they will be attending in the upcoming year and it was unusual for one of my classmates to not be continuing on to college. When continuing on to college, the culture that I had grown up in was more apparent then ever before. The way I talked was different than others, the manners that I was accustomed too and always taught to use suddenly weren’t always being used by others, and I was exposed to a more diverse group of people. Firstly, I never really thought I had an accent until I came to Iowa and had it pointed out to me by many people. Minnesotan’s tend to over emphasize their “O’s” and pronounce the world bag as beg. While living in Minnesota, none of these things were apparent to me because that was the way Minnesotan’s truly talk, but going back to Minnesota after my first semester, the accents stuck out like a sore thumb. 

Family Culture                                                     

                          

My family and I (dogs: Ollie & Owen)

Family is one of the most important things to me and I believe that my family has a sub-culture of our own. For example, sports are a big part of my family. I was a division I gymnast here at Iowa for 3 years until suffering a career ending injury, my sister was a division I diver at the University of Minnesota where she continued on her career training for the Olympics. I also have two first cousins who are currently division I gymnasts at Nebraska. As big as sports are in our family I would say that my immediate family values hard work, dedication, and receiving a good education over any athletic award. My parents have always told my sisters and I that while sports are wonderful, the power of knowledge will take you further than anything else is this world. 

Traveling the World

Mountain side of Spain

The summer going into my junior year of college I was presented with a once in a lifetime opportunity. I was offered a position to do an internship in Spain. I had never been to Europe before and was pretty nervous traveling there on my own because the way that their culture was negatively portrayed in films such as Taken. It really was a concern of mine that if I went there I could be taken. After a few days living in Barcelona this concern of mine turned out to be pretty silly. Barcelona was the most beautiful city I had ever been too and was filled with families, professionals, and all-around wonderful people. However, the culture is way different there then it is in America, especially in a professional setting. In Barcelona, people don’t wake up very early and don’t go to bed until very late hours so our work day didn’t start until 9 a.m. everyday. On Fridays our days would be cut two hours short, and they constantly encouraged us to take breaks at least one every hour. On one of my first days at the office, I was going to take home some work to get ahead and my boss said, “we don’t do work outside the office home here”.

Barcelona Fútbol Stadium

Sagrada Familia