During this semester we did a "Global Nutrition Virtual Exchange".  This project consisted of meeting with a nutrition course from the United Kingdom and brainstorming our similarities and differences.  We got the opportunity to learn more about our culture and theirs through guest speaker presentations and one-on-one meetings in our group.  The reason for this project was to have an understanding and appreciation of our cultural differences, learn about lifestyle behaviors, build intercultural communication skills, and develop cultural sensitivity to attain cultural competence.

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I think this partnership with Newcastle University was very beneficial to this course and helped me to learn a lot about our own culture, and others.  I have never participated in any similar project so this was a great opportunity and a very good way to keep us interested by getting to meet one-on-one with our assigned group and create relationships.  I have learned some similarities were that it is common across the board as students to eat less healthily, fast food is easily accessible and significantly cheaper than healthy options, and coffee is a big "necessity" in both areas.  A few differences we found were Costco is seen as not accessible in the UK and considered one of the most “American” franchises around​, tea is a large part of daily schedule, Starbucks is not their first choice of coffee establishment​, their version of “my plate” recommendations is to eat 5 servings of vegetables and fruit each day, food is seen as more of a luxury and costs a lot so students living on tight budget have limited access to what they can afford to eat, and cinema portions are similarly pricey but significantly smaller portions than in the US.