Collaborative Work & My Experience

As we are beginning our first group project this semester I thought it would be a great idea to write a bit about my past experiences working with groups. Based on having read some of my peer’s post about this same subject I do feel like I’ve had a fair better experience dealing with groups with most. I certainly have had the classic group case scenario where one person does all the work (everyone claims it was them  …. but come on we can’t all be that person) or the group is self-destructive based on bad personal relationships, bad communication,  or the inability to focus on the actual project and spending work time in a social manner. Though I have experienced this I would not say this describes the majority of my experiences. As I have mentioned in previous posts throughout grades 7-12 I was involved in theater both in school and after school and I feel that experience has shaped a lot about who I am in and how I deal with people, confrontation, and collaboration.

Theater was shaped as a safe space for us all to be able to bounce our ideas off of each other and create something that we all felt we had a hand in. It was also a situation in which all of our responsibilities were very clear to us – this may be the defining reason as to why some group projects go so badly.

I hope having had these positive experiences I am able to bring some knowledge to my group as to how to properly structure ourselves and remain responsible for getting our fair share of work done.

“As you navigate through the rest of your life, be open to collaboration. Other people and other people’s ideas are often better than your own. Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life.”

~ Amy Poehler

The world is full of fucking ‘why’ people. You tell people something they’ll tell you ‘why’. You throw a rock you’ll hit somebody with ‘why’ like ‘Hey man I want to make a movie’ and they be like ‘Why? Why do you think you can do that, why? Nobody else is doing it, why are you doing it? There is so much fucking ‘why’. You go out and you find ‘why not’. You surround yourself with ‘why not’. People are just like ‘why not’. Where you are like ‘Hey man I’m gonna try something’ their like ‘Yeah, why not, let’s give it a shot’. People will try to help you do your dreams, make your dreams come true and you do the same for them. We’re all in this together.

~ Kevin smith

These two quotes are great representations of what I think creates great collaboration; a positive attitude, the ability to recognize others great ideas, and the allowance to challenge one another while simultaneously helping one another.