My study abroad community taught me so much more than I thought it would. I thought that my friends would teach my about other cultures and that we’d swap stories and recipes and learn about our respective countries, but it turned out to be so much more than that. I now have friends all over the United States and Europe who impacted me just with their presence. I have an international community, one that will stay with me even when we’re not all together in one place.
The Effect of Building of a Community
My undergraduate experience at USC was transformed my second semester freshman year when I got an on-campus job at the Office of Student Conduct and Academic Integrity as a student assistant. I’ve worked there ever since, and was recently promoted to a more senior position after I returned from study abroad. The new position requires me to design and conduct mid-semester refresher trainings in collaboration with other senior student assistants for the newer student assistants, which is unlike anything I’ve ever done before. Before I went abroad, my instinct would have been to be more of a bossy leader, but I learned from my beyond the classroom experience in Dublin that creating a community produces a much friendlier and more productive environment. Here at USC, I tend to my homework by myself. Most of my friends and I are in totally different classes at this point in our academic careers, and I don’t feel the need to make new friends at this juncture. But in Ireland I was put into an environment where I knew no one, and was forced to make new friends. It was only then that I learned how productive I am in a collaborative community. Even when we weren’t working on homework or projects for the same classes, my friends and I got a lot more work done when we sat together in a coffee shop than when we stayed up late cramming by ourselves in our apartments. While my first instinct at work is still to micro manage and control every situation, I’ve learned to take a step back and make the office feel like a community, and so far it’s been working.
A very simple example of this is my living situation. In the United States, I have a messy roommate. When I see that her room is disorganized, it makes me less likely to clean mine, because she has set a precedent of having a messy room, and there’s no pressure for me to keep mine clean. In Ireland, however, I had an extremely tidy roommate. This motivated me to keep my half of the room and the common area very clean at all times. I also saw this theory at work in other ways when I was abroad. One of my flatmates was very outgoing and extroverted, and fortunately helped me be the same way. She helped me shape my community at Griffith College, and I met people I never would have if I hadn’t been living with her. All of these people—whether they were from Alaska or Austria—made my home at Griffith College a home, and I benefited greatly from their diverse perspectives both within and outside classroom. My time in Dublin happened to fall at the same time as the beginning of the United States presidential campaign in 2015. Hearing my international friends’ and colleagues’ input about the presidential race was fascinating to me, and even gave me a greater understanding of my own country. The community that we built together fostered intellectual conversations and helped me gain valuable insight about my own beliefs. My friends told me their thoughts and helped me come to conclusions I never would have found on my own.
This idea of community has also been tied into my curriculum at USC. Currently in my Minorities, Women, and the Mass Media (JOUR 311) course, we are discussing the social learning theory. My notes on the topic can be seen below. In this class we are specifically talking about the role the media plays in teaching people stereotypes about minorities and women, but it can obviously be applied in a much broader way. The theory says that we learn behaviors, attitudes, and values from observing others.
Since my promotion, I’ve tried to remember what it feels like to be part of a productive and collaborative community, and to implement that in the workplace. Below are some of the training materials I helped create that we now use at the office. My colleague and I designed them with one simple goal in mind: to improve productivity and efficiency at the office. But while making the materials, I realized that the end goal is just one component of the bigger picture of office functionality. It was then that it clicked that these newer and younger student assistants would be learning from how I presented myself, and that after I was gone, they would likely be modeling their behavior and work habits after mine and my colleague’s. Working part-time throughout my college career has been a huge part of my experience, and the office has given me a lot—work ethic, friendships, and so much more. I want to leave it a better place than when I started. I’m working hard to curb my natural tendency to be bossy, and to promote a collaborative community where people feel safe asking questions and making mistakes. The PowerPoint attached below demonstrates the feeling I was trying to convey to my coworkers, particularly on the third slide where it says "If you aren’t sure about something, just ask; we want this to be a safe environment for everyone’s questions." Despite my newfound seniority, I am by no means a perfect student assistant, and don’t expect perfection from my colleagues.