Civility DEVELOPMENT (512)
Interacting well with others is a key to success. People have varying perspectives, beliefs, and values. Recognizing these different perspectives allows people to interact well with others. Throughout the year, I have learned a lot about myself and how to interact well with others. Cornerstone has helped me become more of a well rounded person. One example of an eye opening experience was the theatre presentation over The American Way of Eating. This threatre presentation was a great way to view some examples of civility issues. Tracie McMillian’s undercover research in fields, Applebee’s, and Wal-Mart allowed her audience to see examples of varying perspectives. Her book and the theatre presentation definitely challenged my thinking. Actually seeing the play and reading the book made me see different perspectives of food production and how communication is a big part of life. As far as getting outside of my comfort zone this semester, I think that I definitely went outside of my comfort zone when doing the group project. By getting put into groups that were chosen for us, I was able to interact with peers other than with my close friends. I am very good with getting along with people and it was a great experience to work with new people. The people in my group all had different perspectives about what we should do for the project and different beliefs about what responsibilities we should hold ourselves to. The video project allowed me to learn how to work with a diverse group of people. I got a lot out of the project because I know that teamwork is going to be a huge part of my future career. Going into the project, I was a little uncomfortable with working around new people. But after working hard with my group and equally sharing the work to create a great final product, I learned a lot about how to interact well with people of different backgrounds. This group project has really taught me to be accepting of other people’s opinions even if I do not necessarily agree with them. After the video was finished our group realized how close we got over the weeks of putting it together. This was caused from communicating with each other and helping each other achieve success. I grew immensely as a person by communicating with my group and being very open about what we needed to get done. I also felt that receiving and giving peer reviews helped me communicate with others. I could openly share my input on their documents while they did the same for mine. I could also see how others interpreted my paper besides just the professor. I learned a lot about communication and how to interact with others throughout the year. I was a little skeptical if Cornerstone would actually create me into a more well rounded person. Through all my despite, Cornerstone has evolved me to become a better writer, speaker, and communicator. Best of all, it has created me to have much more connections then I ever expected.