Collaboration has always been something that I look forward although I am a bit shy. However, this year, heavily due to the pandemic, we all have been forced to collaborate with one another in order to survive this obstacle. And I have been affected by this trend. I have found collaboration not only in clubs at Wesleyan but also in the nature of my classes. For example, in Chemistry class, 6 students with a TA meet once a week to go over the week’s lessons and work on problems. Since I love chemistry, I became heavily involved in these groups. We often help each other understand heavy concepts and form friendships. Our teams solved those problems by saying what the other person did or just shouting out random ideas that may work. But perhaps the best example of collaboration, one where I have shown both leadership and professionalism, was my time in the Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA). Specifically, I am part of the Student Budget Committee (SBC) where each week we meet to discuss budget requests made by clubs on campus. We evaluate how much money they request, what the funds will be used for, and if the request violates any of our rules. In this deliberation, each member can say something that affects the outcome of the request. For instance, I have more than one time said that the request violates our rules and I have voted no sometimes for a request. Other times, we are all in agreement. But the ability to collaborate with each other to find common ground made these meetings great experiences. Next semester, I will not be joining WSA due to time constraints but I will probably run in junior and hopefully obtain the position of Chair of the SBC in order to enhance my leadership skills and engage in constructive collaboration.
Finally, an important part of collaboration is maintaining those connections that you make. I have done this through the usage of LinkedIn and by actually working alongside the people I want to connect with. For example, back in the fall semester, I helped Prof. Padilla-Benavides with the creation of her SACNAS chapter here at Wesleyan. This chapter is part of a national Science diversity organization. Once I made that connection to that professor (and I hadn’t taken any classes with her), I then tried to talk to her more often. I have been attending her research presentations and her lab meetings in hopes of joining her lab. This just shows how I maintain my connections.
