Team Player

There are many ways that people deal with conflicts, some push to have their words heard while others just simply follow the crowd believing that their words won’t matter. Both of these behaviors were observed during the class activity. Although there were many people who struggled to express their opinions, there were also many people who chose not to actively participate in the decision making process including myself. At first, I chose to withdraw myself from the process because I highly doubted we were going to come to a 100% agreement as a class given the amount of people involved. However, noticing the chaos diminished with the emergence of a leader figure; I decided to accommodate to the situation realizing that there might still be a chance for a positive outcome. Also, understanding the importance of this decision to the majority of the class, I chose to go along with whatever decision the class came up with.
Nevertheless, since I now know the different ways that people implement to handle conflicts and the reasoning behind them, I think I would choose to collaborate with others in a decision making process. I agree with the professor that having multiple groups is the most effective way to derive a decision especially among a large group of people. I believe it is easier to come to a conclusion in a small group than a large one. I think that the fastest way to come to a decision is for a small group to agree on a proposition first before the class as a whole can then negotiate among these propositions. Also, I feel that the best decision is one made through the collaboration of the best ideas from each group.

The Story Of A Tough Egg

To start off, I would like to say “good jobs” to all my group members! I think the only reason why we were able to build an effective egg protector was because everyone contributed to the process of planning. Although we have had a hard time trying to come up with the best solution in the beginning, it was through compromising and incorporating everyone’s ideas that we finally came to the solution.

As far as the steps in the planning process goes and from where I observed, everyone in the group took into consideration the limited resources we had available to us while trying to sketch a working plan. We as a group also estimated the height of each group member before selecting the perfect candidate to drop the egg from the table. In addition, before we arrived at the final decision, everyone in the group contributed a plan that they think would work individually.

Then, as a group, we evaluated all the strengths and the weaknesses that every plan possessed and combined all the strengths to develop the perfect solution. Next, after we have all agreed on the plan, everyone was assigned a particular job in the process of building the egg protector. For instance, one person was responsible for taping all the straws together while another was in charge of taping the straws around the egg.

Lastly, after we have constructed the egg protector, we took a step back and made sure that it satisfied all the requirements such as having a 50% visibility. We also had to change the original plan a bit by taping an extra straw around the egg because it was not enough shield to protect it from the fall. Therefore, I would say that we did not bypass any of the steps in the planning process except for the first one which was done for us by the professor.

However, I do have to say that we should have used our time more efficiently in the beginning because we wasted a lot of time trying to come up with a plan individually.

The Red Undies

Culture is a very interesting phenomenon, it exists wherever there's people, especially in an urban area such as New York City. There are many different cultures and subcultures in NYC and thus the name "The Melting Pot." As you can tell by my name, I am Chinese and given that I spent the first 11 years of my life in China, I can assure you, there are many differences between the Chinese and the American culture.

First off, there are the different eating utensils. As you probably know already from dining in Chinese restaurants, we use chopsticks instead of knives and forks. Also, there is a huge difference in the food. While a typical American dinner is consist of salad, pasta, steak, and soup, a traditional Chinese dinner would include a dish of fried vegetable, seafood, meat, soup and rice.

Besides the obvious differences, there are many invisible differences between the two cultures. For example, unlike the Americans who express their love and caring for family members through hugs and kisses, the Chinese are less intimate when it comes to expressing love.

Last but not least, there is the different dress code between the Chinese culture and the American. For instance, during holidays such as New Year, Chinese people are big fans of red clothing to the extent that they even wear red under clothes because red is a sign of luck to them while the Americans are not as superstitious.