International Coffee Hour Offers Immersion into Various Cultures

Every Friday at noon, students of various backgrounds gather in San Diego State University’s International Student Center for International Coffee Hour, a weekly event in which students share their cultures through presentations and food.

To kick off this year’s International Coffee Hour series, design major Andrea Lopez and linguistics major Sofia Montes, exchange students from Mexico, led a presentation about their home country. 

“Giving the presentation made me very proud to be Mexican,” Montes said.

Lopez echoed the sentiment.

“It feels nice that people are interested in my country and my culture,” Lopez said. “These coffee hours have a lot to offer to students and can help them learn something totally new that they would not have known before.”
Montes especially appreciated that it gave her an opportunity to show people what Mexico really is.

“I liked showing people that Mexico is not that awful violent place that people always hear about, and the stereotype that gets thrown around is false. There are a lot of beautiful parts about it and people should know about those parts,” Montes said.  

Hajo Vis, an English and Japanese major from the Netherlands, found the coffee hour to be a valuable social event.

“I learned so much about the food and the culture,” Vis said. “It’s really cool to meet so many people in my first week here at SDSU and it makes it so easy to get in touch with people.”
Vis is looking forward to the coffee hour covering the country he studies, Japan.

“I will definitely be coming to more events and becoming a member of the ISC.”

Lisa Lyons, an international student advisor at the center, loves learning about other countries and seeing students get exposed to new cultures.

“The opportunity it gives SDSU to get all these different kinds of people together is really special,” Lyons said. “I have really enjoyed learning about countries I never thought I would.”

This article originally appeared in The Daily Aztec.