Dashaun Gasque

Hello,

My name is Dashaun Gasque and, despite all the places I have called home over the course of my life, my one true home will always be New Jersey. I am currently a graduate student studying Psychology at Pepperdine University. I graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in Psychology and a supplementary degree in Spanish in 2011.

Much of my academic, research and professional experience has been focused on gaining a better understanding of people and cultures, so psychology has been an integral aspect of my life even before I began college. During the sumer of my senior year of high school, I participated in a cultural emersion program entitled the People to People Student Ambassador Program where I was able to meet governmental officials in Australia to gain an understanding of Australian government, culture and ethnic groups. This was my first experience with the perception of ethnic identities outside of the United States and pushd me to want to learn more about how group identify and define themselves.

During college, I was given the opportunity to conduct research while studying in Spain on the cultural emersion of American college students into a foreign culture, which added to my thirst to understand people and what drove people to participate in various aspects of a different culture.

For the past 2 years, I have been living in Shenzhen, China working as the Assistant Coordinator for a teaching program and as an English and Spanish teacher. This expereince forced me to not only look at the culture of the Chinese citizens, but also on the cultural influence we as foreigners had on Chinese society, consumerism and standards of living.