Intercultural Experiences

Personally, I feel this has been the largest intercultural experience I have had. Despite
having visited other countries abroad and having small exchanges of culture, nothing compares
to being able to work in groups with people from all different backgrounds. The group assigned
to me was very particular. One of the members is Turkish living in Germany and another one is
Brazilian living in Argentina so there was a lot of diversity.

Furthermore, we are six members of the team, two living in Colombia, two in Germany
and two in Argentina. We are very different from each other. We talked about habits and
schedules and even living in the same country there were remarkable differences. That did not
stop us from getting to work and discussing the matter.

To begin with, the collaboration was not easy at first. We were having a hard time
finding a time that suited everybody. Even one of the members could not join the debate.
However, we were connected via WhatsApp the whole assignment. I believe that we struggled
a lot with the individual working habits. We had a hard time agreeing on when to start and
how far in advance.

I know I have little free time, that is why I wanted to do the assignment as soon as
possible to have time to spare if something went wrong. The other teammates were fonder of
doing things at the last minute. That is why we could not agree on a time that worked for all of
us at first. I guess we learned to compromise to achieve the goal. Moreover, we realized that
we all preferred working alone but we all had to contribute to the team to get the homework
done. I think that for future similar experiences, it would be helpful to have a shared calendar
to avoid confusion due to time zones and to organize in a better way. Another great idea
would be to set a weekly meeting that occurs every week at the same time to catch up and
exchange ideas. In addition, I found it very helpful to know each other personally. It creates a
bond and a sense of empathy with the rest of the members that made us more tolerant.

Truthfully, I have learned a lot about the importance of having multicultural skills as a
professional, the diversity of language and culture. It has helped me to have a new
understanding on intercultural communication and to strengthen my communication with
others. Culture and language are inseparable. It was a challenge at times since we often made
mistakes in communication due to the grammatical differences between our native languages.
To avoid unnecessary misunderstanding while communicating to each other, we should
improve and master pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. Also, it is fundamental to
understand different contexts and background to really communicate and avoid cultural
conflicts.

Professionally I am sure that the time will come when I must talk to people from all
over the world. This project has proven to me the importance of being able to speak English
fluently and being able to understand the language with different accents. What is more, by
getting to know each other on a personal level, I have learned to respect cultural differences
and embrace cultural diversity. One of the teammates pointed out to us that he had a very
demanding family in terms of his studies due to his culture. Knowing that fact made me realize
how different we all are and the importance of knowing each other. The encounter of different
cultures is a good opportunity to expand our horizons.