This is my fourth week at my new job, and my second week in San Francisco for work. I realize it’s still early, but I still feel very positive about everything. I’ve been having a lot of meetings with different people and many one-on-ones with people across departments, and among the things that have struck me are how interested people are in me outside of work. What do I like to do? Where I am originally from? Do I have siblings? This seems like such a simple thing, but this wasn’t quite the case at my last company. I found a colleague who is a fellow Seven Sisters alum from Barnard. We discussed at length our experiences going to a women’s college and how it’s affected our lives and perceptions of the world. One colleague originally from Kentucky is also in a mixed marriage, and we talked about family dynamics around culture and color. Another colleague who loves travel and I bonded over our travel in Japan and how delicious the fish and tofu there are. The backgrounds here are so diverse; there are actually a lot of non-white people who work here, people who are not American passport holders or citizens, people who have lived around the world who have worked in industries ranging from education, consulting, finance, nonprofit, and even government. People are freaking smart here – really smart, and not just at their jobs. There’s a lot of perspective here and a desire for healthy and friendly debate. We have a Slack channel that is 100% devoted to discussing diversity issues, and there’s been a lot of healthy debate on it, which I’ve also contributed to. That was not the world I knew in my last job at all. And there’s a level of support and a true desire to support across departments that has been made very clear to me. This is all foreign to me, but it’s at the same time very reassuring. I kind of feel at home and like I can really accept being here, and that I will be accepted.