Monday, June 16, 2014

What? So What? Now What?

During the community service event, my fellow group members and I took on several challenges at once: We were required to get to know each other quickly and work well together; we were required to complete several team-building exercises quickly and efficiently; and we were required to assemble a bicycle from its aggregate parts.
In the course of completing the community service event, I gained working knowledge of bicycle maintenance, something that both applies to my life as a college student and appeals to my interests as a mechanical engineering student. While I expected our time to be more wholly directed toward the community service task to which were specifically assigned, the time we spent getting to know each other as a team proved very valuable. If we had alternatively been set immediately to work on the bicycle, we likely would have squabbled more and had too many people trying to complete single tasks, etc. My teammates provided an excellent example of maintaining a positive attitude in times of stress, as evidenced by our collective response to mistakes made throughout the bicycle assembly process. We had to rectify several mistakes before our bicycle was complete – the handlebars were initially installed backward, the brakes needed to be tightened multiple times, etc. – but each time we discovered a new job that had to be redone, every group member stayed positive. That was a powerful lesson that I will remember as I continue my research.

To that end, I can apply our group’s team-oriented approach to interaction as I continue work in my research lab. That should make my research a more enjoyable and enriching experience. I don’t think I would change anything if I could do the group activities again. My group worked well together right from the start, and we were one of the first to completely assemble our bicycle.  If there would be any difference at all in my own conduct, it would only be due to my now increased knowledge of bicycle maintenance, not due to any change required in how I interacted with the rest of my group.

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