What, So What?, Now What? by Joshua Aviles

What?

During the community service event, I observed teams helping each other out in order to efficiently accomplish various goals set out by the UROP people. Our various tasks involved asking other teammates questions and then switching questions to ask other teammates all the questions in the task folder. Another task was to roll balls down cut out pipes in order to land them in a bucket. Yet another task was building a bike out of parts given by the UROP people for every task completed. I aided in putting some of the parts together on that bike and even rode it in the end! Finally, our task was to launch a rubber chicken into on-the-floor hula hoops. Finally, I observed fraternizing across all sections of the Summer 2014 UROP program. I even made a few friends during this service event.

So What?

The new skill I learned was the ability to rally others. During the chicken launching event, for example, I screamed "1, 2, 3..." in order to foster unity and collaboration towards a common goal. During one of our tries, we made our chicken into the hoop the first try.

This experience was different from other similar experiences I have been in because in the end, I got involved in an emotional discussion concerning the place of African-Americans and Mexican-Americans in American history considering their humble beginnings as either slaves or low-wage workers that had to build up their future from scratch, essentially.

What I liked from the experience was the team-building and arguably relationship-building exercises uniting people from different programs within UROP. What I disliked about the experience was the food, which was a bit too unhealthy. I think more vegetables should have been offered like ranch dressing and carrots which are classic for large-scale gathering.

What I learned from my group members is that no matter where we come from, we can always find something to bond together with. For example, I met this guy from Detroit who called me a "brother" because I was Hispanic and from LA which is the "brother city" of Detroit due to the role both cities played in minority activism and the civil rights movement for the Mexican-Americans and African-Americans, respectively. In addition, both are industrial powerhouses that have been the backbone of a majority of America's industry. In the LA area, the manufacturing base is the largest in the USA and in the Detroit area, the automobile industry has been the largest in the US history. Therefore, both have attracted many minorities to the affluence both cities offer.

Now What?

I can apply what I learned in the research lab by applying intelligent thinking and quick thinking into the realm of self-driven research projects that I am embarking on at this very moment. Often times, research like the one I am involved in can lead to road-blocks in terms of the concepts or the tasks needed to be accomplished. Through quick thinking, you can find help in order to accomplish these tasks or gain clarification on new concepts. Don't understand a concept? Read a book or ask the sponsor.

If I could do the group activities, what I would do differently is try to gather people in more often. Often times, our team members were going off separately meeting people they knew from other teams. In fact, for our last picture together as a team I had to gather people from all over the gym because they were all over the place. It was kind of frustrating to see this disunity.

Overall, it was an amazing event and I got more out of it than I thought I would.