BA-352-LINKUN

As the class is getting towards to our first proposal, I feel like my leadership experiences have improved. At the third week, I was able to learn how to find and describe problems in a more specific ways. At the group meeting where we were trying to find a specific need for LCB students, everybody in the group was encouraged to share their opinions. And each of us was being very critical to the problems that were being discussed. This is the first time I found the usefulness to complete a project within a group, after three and half year in college. I was able to listening closely of what others’ opinions and give them feedback in a proper manner.

In addition, I also learned the interview skills and found useful out of it as well. After each of us being assigned to interview at least five people to discover a student need from outside of our group, I start to critically asking myself what kind of questions will be appropriate and efficient to help me conducting this interview. It was very surprisingly to learn that my interview skill was terrible at first couple times. I thought there would be no difference than I’m just talking to a friend. But it was not that easy, especially when wording the questions incorrectly and people who were being asked were so confusing. Meanwhile, I couldn’t give the interviewees too many of my personal opinions because that will distract their thinking. Now I have collected enough data on hand. Over the weekend, I need to critically extract and comprehend the students’ opinions on the issue and trying to connect them into a pattern and ready to share with my teammate when we meet.

It seems time past so fast that now it’s getting towards to the third week. I need to develop my leadership plan by challenging my self to talk more with my groups and during the class.  During the second week of the class,  I substantively learned much more new knowledge, such as group communication, design thinking, and group activity.

First of all, for the group communication, I finally got to meet my group member outside of the class, and all of us seemed getting along very well with each other. We have contributed our own thoughts and understanding about the class and how we should be prepared for the rest of the term. This is a good start! As I mentioned from my first week post, I hope this is not going to be any of my other groups that everybody ended up pushing their task further and further. Although I got along well with them, I feel a communication barrier between us because I am an international student and English is not my first language. There must be a different culture context involved so I couldn’t understand what their daily college life would be. My goal is to learn something that they all interested such as Football or Facebook, so at the beginning of every meeting, I will be able to participate the conversation with them to build a good relationship. However, I have one concern that my group members don’t have as high expectation of performance as I do in the class. I need to think about how to balance our expectations.

In the class, I have learned some helpful concepts about the design thinking. I had no idea how I can think differently than I ever can be. I was especially fascinating about how I should think out-side-of the box and how improvising is based on observation around me not just think something out of my own mind. As I mentioned in my leadership development plan, for 20 years of my life living in China, I feel like I can’t  think on my own and everything must follow a rigid rule. Now, it is my opportunity to learn and use my creative ideas that will in turn help our group project progress.

Also, for the group project, I agreed that not to find the solution unless we really understood the problem. However, we seemed unable to observe sufficient problems that LCB has. All of our observation is to improve the practical experience at LCB. I have proposed a couple of other ideas such as improving business students with their daily needs like set up a cafeteria, or a small library for students to have a quiet room to study instead of studying in the computer lab. But I need to do more research on whether it is feasible or it is indeed what students need.

As a majority of students would agree, BA-352 is one of the most challenging courses at LCB. For the first week of the class on my own experience, I definitely feel the tension and seriousness around the class. I can see that most students are seemed to commit themselves to this class and try to be as professional as they can. Meanwhile, I also enjoy this active discussions and relatively open-mind interaction between groups and the teacher.

Throughout this course, I really hope that I can gain some knowledge on how to become an effective team member. I don’t know other students, once I heard the phrase “You are going to work in a group of 4 to 5 to complete your project,” I immediately feel depressed. It is not that I don’t like to work in a group, I just don’t know how to work in a group.

With all of my business class group projects for the past two years, I pretty much completed all of them on my own… Although it takes longer time to do, it was still within the scope of my capability. However, I know for sure that some day, there will be a project such as BA-352 project, that I just can’t possibly complete it on my own within so limited amount of time.

one of the most common situations would happen like this: During the first group meeting, everybody was excited about the project, and the tasks was properly distributed to everyone. Then, people started to pushing the deadline for their part further and further. Because I don’t know how to communicate with other group members and I also want to have a good grade, I ended up completing the project on my own.

At the above circumstance, I don’t know how to communicate with them and I always fail to lead. As I became more and more frustrated with my group members, I started to get a little bit emotional, then people in my group started to steer clear from me. To be honest, I always feel powerless and helpless.

I hope throughout this class, I will be able to learn and practice how to effective communicate with my group members so people will actually being motivated to do the project.