Raquel Rivera

Hello blog reader, I will be sharing: my experience on how it was working on my group presentation with my group members, things I learned from other group presentations, my personal struggles and achievement I had.

If I remember correctly our group easily came to an agreement on how we would complete our PowerPoint for our presentation for 1/20/2022. We completed our project by splitting up a number of words in the chapter which we would later on explain with our own words how it related to the chapter reading. I did not know which words to choose in the beginning from fear of getting into conflict with someone who probably wanted those words so I decided to wait and do whichever words were left to complete. The majority of our group ended up with 3 words and there was 4 words left. My group member Kevin also needed words to do his part in the presentation. So our group leader Valery suggested we split up those four words and that we did! My words were "intangible" and "written brief". I had trouble finding videos that could explain what these words had to do with the chapter which led me to use pictures in order to express and use them as an example.

I had two personal struggles in this project: google slides and glossophobia. This was my first time ever using google slides so after I was done with my slides, I did not know how I would decorate them and I was scared of clicking something I should not that would ruin my other members slides. The day of the presentation someone needed to share the screen. I was told that Mac computers were not able to allow the sounds from the video to be heard when screen sharing so I offered to share mine despite not knowing how. I believe this increased my anxiety thankfully I was able to share and pass through the slides with no difficulty. Ever since I was little I have always had really bad anxiety. I believe it started during elementary school when I had to present science fair projects. When it comes to presenting things in a new environment my anxiety increases to the point that my whole body starts shaking until I am done. It is usually out of fear that things will not go the way I initially thought they would. My anxiety is not as bad if I am comfortable with those around me. I guess you could say I think about the "what ifs?" a lot before presenting. Once I was done presenting my slides, I definitely felt more like myself. I was very happy to be done and I was glad I was able to once again step out of my comfort zone. I feel that this class will help me fight my anxiety in a way and help me easily try new things without having any fear.

I learned many things from group one and group two. Group one's presentation had to do with intercultural communications and group two had to do with communicating in groups. I learned many things from group one such as customs that are normal here could be unacceptable somewhere else. My own example would be, my family is Cuban and we love cow meat now people who believe in Hinduism. If I was eating with a Hindu person, it would be nice and thoughtful of me to order something that would not be seen as offensive. As well as how it is good to be open minded when having a conversation with someone from a different origin. I also learned from group one that I was bicultural. I did not know until that presentation that there was a word that meant appreciating and embracing two different cultures. There is something I agree with group one’s chapter and that is stereotypes are likely to damage our relationship. Lastly, I learned from group one that there are competent strategies of communication, like reading books about countries cultures and participating in those cultures. If I remember correctly, I believe someone used an example of using chopsticks instead of a fork when visiting a culture who had those customs. I also learned a lot from group two's presentation. It reminded me that there are different types of groups like friend groups, work group, or family group, etc. We may communicate differently between these groups either formally or informally depending on who we talk with. Also, I liked that they added pros and cons on certain groups like the asynchronous groups. I was aware of its cons, but I never really thought of how it reduced people’s transportations and their meal expenses. Lastly, I liked that when some people were not able to be there for their class presentation, they recorded their presentation and I thought it was really thoughtful of them to do so because it also meant respecting the other classmate’s time.

To conclude my blog, I learned many things from these group presentations: how to communicate in groups, how to communicate with people with different cultures, and leadership between groups and how to solve conflict between groups. These presentations have made it clear that it is important to communicate with our group members, and if we want to make friendship with people from different places around the world, we have to be open minded and thoughtful. I personally enjoyed working with my group we had no arguments, everything went smoothly, and everyone put their part and effort. I wish to end this conclusion by letting you know what my goals are and what I want to do better after watching my classmates’ presentations. Firstly, I want to master google slides that way my future slides can be more creative. I would also like to hopefully include a video that could maybe make my explanations more clearer. Lastly, I hope that by the next presentation I feel more comfortable when it comes to presenting. Until the next blog!