THEORY TO PRACTICE
From a cross-discipline perspective, exemplary faculty from North Carolina State University, Czech University of Life Sciences, and Reutlingen University in Germany provide course experiences that:
1.) Enable students to compare and contrast leadership practices and strategies across disciplines.
2.) Relate leadership theories and practices to real-life situations.
3.) Articulate the most appropriate team decision making strategies to implement in different situations.
Students are expected to evaluate and apply frameworks through a variety of assessments, including reflective papers, presentations and a virtual portfolio that articulates and demonstrates their study abroad experience and how the experience is influencing the way in which they desire to lead and work in a global society.
1.) Enable students to compare and contrast leadership practices and strategies across disciplines.
2.) Relate leadership theories and practices to real-life situations.
3.) Articulate the most appropriate team decision making strategies to implement in different situations.
Students are expected to evaluate and apply frameworks through a variety of assessments, including reflective papers, presentations and a virtual portfolio that articulates and demonstrates their study abroad experience and how the experience is influencing the way in which they desire to lead and work in a global society.
DESIGN THINKING MODEL
The model I learned from SLC 250 that continues to play a role in my life is the Design Thinking Model. It's composed of 5 core steps; empathy, define, ideate, prototype, and test. The step that has stood out to me the most over the past year is the empathy step, which requires that you physically put yourselves in the shoes of the people who are affected most by the problem you are trying to solve. This played a big role during my time abroad because it helped me in developing connections with people who were different from me.
CRUCIAL CONVERSATIONS
A leadership strategy that I learned from MIE 430 that I hope to integrate into both my future personal and professional life is the Crucial Conversations exercise. This involves having a constructive dialogue whenever conflict arises, rather than resolving to either violence or silence. By using STATE (state the facts, tell your story, ask for others paths, talk tentatively, and encourage testing), I am more effectively able to communicate about an issue and more efficiently reach a solution. By using CRU (content, pattern, relationship), I can differentiate between the root cause of a problem.
INTERCULTURAL EFFECTIVENESS SCALE
By assessing myself on the Interpersonal Effectiveness Scale during MIE 430, I was able to understand where my weaknesses lie and put together a tangible and trackable personal development plan in order to try to enhance my abilities. I found that I had room for improvement in extrovert, detective, and explorer. From learning this, I put together a measurable list of goals related to developing my skills in these areas.
SELF-REFLECTION
A particular habit that stood out to me during PRT 359 that I want to continue implementing into my life is self-reflection. The ability to self-reflect will allow me to understand my strengths and weaknesses, my values, how and why I make certain decisions, and how I can learn from my mistakes/the mistakes of others. I’ve done a lot of self-reflection on this trip, and one major thing I’ve come to realize is just how small I am in the grand scheme of the world. Such a realization has also come with a greater sense of humility and cultural awareness that I didn’t have prior to my time abroad, which are two qualities that are crucial to have as a leader. They improve your ability to think with a global mindset because you can more readily put yourself in the shoes of others and utilize from your differences.
TEAM DECISION MAKING
During my experience taking FTM 484, I had several opportunities to work within a team or partnership. In doing so, I was able to practice compromise and effective communication. One particular simulation taught me an important lesson, and that's that it takes a good leader to know when it's time to lead from the back. We were unsuccessful in our simulation because we had too many members trying to take executive action, and make decisions without considering what quieter members had to say. When it came time to reflect, we quickly realized that we created an environment that was too loud for those who were quieter to share their thoughts.