X-Culture: Stepping Outside the Comfort Zone

Guest Blogger: Rita Acevedo Rivera, Nathan M. Bisk College of Business student

Finally done! I didn’t think I would manage finishing the X-Culture project. It was a challenging project. It pushed me out of my comfort zone because I don’t like talking to strangers and in this project I was assigned to work with people from other countries that I never thought of meeting nor talking to them. Now that I have my X-Culture certificate, I look back at how everything started and how it finished. Mrs. Muth had me scared at the beginning of the semester when he was explaining our International Business class all about this project and what percentage was going to our final grade. First thing that popped in my mind was “This is too much for me.”

I was nervous the first time we had to introduce ourselves by email to our teammates. I was worried about the possibility of not being able to understand some of my teammates because of the different languages. At the same time, I was so excited that I had someone to talk Spanish to. It took me by surprised how polite and welcoming my teammates were to me and to the rest of the team. It made feel more comfortable talking to new people.

Honestly, I couldn’t ask for a better team. They were all willing to work for the benefit of the team, rather than themselves. Our communication was key to our success in completing the report. We stayed communicating with each other mostly everyday and pushed each other to do well and complete the individuals tasks assigned. They were two people in specific that did an incredible job for the team, Hengzhi and Daniela. Hengzhi was very good at coordinating tasks deadline and dividing the workload. Daniela was always checking on the team and making sure that we were on track with our tasks.

This project has definitely help to work on my shyness with new people. It has also helped strength my time management skills, leadership, and communication skills. It was a pleasure working with people that had common goal, and it was to finish the project together and do the best work possible. After all, I was able to take with me great experience and hopefully a good grade. Now, that the project is done I can’t tell Mr. Muth that I’m talking to my X-Culture team in class when he catches me texting. X-Culture has been real. Now is time to move on. I will always remember the X-Culture Project.