Dynamic Curiosity

A great example of where I developed my cross cultural group collaboration skills was in my software engineering course at UNSW. In my software project, 2 students were from Australia, 1 from China, 1 from the Netherlands, and I was from the US. This posed a few challenges off the bat which were styles of communication and communication methods. We all utilized different apps to text and communicate so it was challenging to find one that we would each check consistently. Eventually we all decided on what's app to stay in touch during our development project. Another barrier was styles of communication, some of us were very outspoken and often led our group's discussion meetings but our group mate from China was still learning English so he often resorted to staying silent during discussions. This meant it was even more important to take the time to ask for everyone's input and give each member the space to speak their mind on the issues our group was dealing with.

In all of my time at UF, I have been developing my skill of independence. Coming from a small town in Ohio, I knew no one when I moved here to Florida, nor had I ever been that far away from home on my own. From the get go, I was forced to interact and meet new individuals alone. Then the following summer when I moved to Spain, I was again thrown into an environment where I knew one or two other students and yet again, I was in a new location. This time, I was in an entirely new continent for the first time. Time and time again, then moving to Miami on my own one summer for an internship, followed by halfway across the globe to Sydney, Australia all by myself, I pushed myself to my boundaries. Through this, I have developed a level of comfort in my ability to problem solve and travel independently. 

While there are many examples where I have developed perseverance through a variety of obstacles, one that shines through was when I signed up for an Ironman 70.3 while studying in Sydney. I had no prior triathlon training and I signed up online 2 weeks prior to the race. This may have been a naive undertaking, but I had just ran a marathon the weekend before and knew I'd be able to push myself. Leading up to the race I was very nervous that I was severely under prepared. But there I was, jumping into the freezing water to start off on a 2 km swim. I wanted to quit almost immediately. 50 meters in and I had already swallowed what felt like half of the lake. I felt hopeless knowing 90 km on a bike and 21 km of running were soon to follow. But for 6 full hours I kept telling myself, it is "you vs. you". With no music allowed on the course, all I had was my constant mantra running through my head. And at the end of the day, even though I was not prepared for the race, I was able to persevere and push myself beyond a level of physical exertion than I had every done before. 

While my time in Spain definitely increased my speaking and comprehension skills in the Spanish language. It also impacted my overall communication skills. I was asked to give a commencement speech at the end of program graduation. Not being a fluent or native speaker of the language, I was very nervous at first. I was not confident that I would be able to clearly portray a message in Spanish that I had developed in my head in English. But utilizing those around me, I wrote, re-wrote, and proof read my speech several times and had others do the same around me. This helped to refine and clarify any ambiguities that may have been present in my speech. But then came the delivery. Now I've always been a good public speaker in English, but doing so in a second language was going to take time. So I practiced for several days, in the mirror, in front of friends, and even in front of the advisor to fully prepare myself for graduation. During the ceremony, I excelled and stayed calm due to my preparation, but it taught me that great communication skills don't always have to come naturally, the best communicators take time to think, edit, and prepare.

Throughout my travels, I have developed a level of appreciation and awareness for the cultures around me. More so recently in my exchange in Australia because the trips that I went on were to several countries where English is not widely spoken (like my travels in Europe). In each of these trips, there were moments of raw culture where we got to truly have a conversation with a local individual and understand their life perspective. I found this to be the very best way to gain a level of awareness for other cultures, through truly pausing and listening. One great example of this was when I was in Malaysia. We went into a random tea shop and we were the only customers. The man who owned the shop sat down with us over a cup of tea and we conversed about his family and past. He was originally from China, but came to Malaysia when he was younger. His shop is a root that ties him back to China as he served Chinese and Malaysian teas. Taking a moment to pause and sit and listen for an hour during our busy led to such a profound conversation and moment that will stick with me forever.

A key skill that I recently honed in and developed was retrospection. This is the act of reflecting on one's own past, successes, mistakes, events, growth periods, etc... While studying in Australia, I had my own mental struggles that I had to address. In my very first course that semester, we were tasked with historical reflective writing. What that meant it, we had to write about the historical events, but include reflective moments where we address how this made us feel, how others might feel, and how these experiences might change over time. I took these reflective skills to heart when I went through a dark period mentally that semester and I started writing poetry. I had tried journaling, but I didn't enjoy my constant ramblings on the page. Poetry offered me the tools to critically analyze and reflect, retrospectively on the emotions and events that I was having a hard time processing.