First, if I didn't mention it before, I did receive my final grade from my first course (Historical Development of Human Services). I ended up receiving an A- and a 3.67 GPA overall. I'll take it!
(Side note, my last week's score was only 81.57% which I cringed when I saw, but that's only 15.5/19 and still 81 course points left to earn over the next few weeks.)
Onto week 2 of my present course. Again, let me say, holy wow! This week has been a tough one for me. My new learning team really struggled to get together this week and I honestly hit the point of just taking a zero on the assignment (which would really have inhibited my ability to get an A in this class--remember the collective group assignments are worth 30% of your grade).
Instead of giving up, I decided to try harder. Of course, this resulted in me feeling incredibly stressed out and completely losing two nights of sleep, but we all managed to pull together today and work on the assignment as a real group! It was amazing to see it really happen! I didn't think I could handle trying to do it. After we finished our 'meeting,' I even received a compliment from one of my group members about it. That felt really good. Now, I'm just waiting on the slides to be sent to me so I can put together and edit the slideshow presentation that is due tomorrow night.
I learned a couple of things today. This group work that I was so irritated about, is actually helping me in a leader type of way. I think. I feel weird saying that. Now that it's out there though, I actually managed to pull together a small group of people and get us all on the same page and collectively working on an assignment as a group. It was awesome. I don't think I've done that before, not in a beneficial way. I was able to be patient, even though I was freaking out here at home, and I was able to still communicate positively and with praise to them and not demonstrate frustration and anger, despite feeling it. I can do that in my professional life, so long as I have some sort of positive outlet (ie, a private ear), but I've always struggled with it when it comes to educational factors. I feel like I moved a mountain on the inside. (You can laugh now, if you aren't already).
So this week, here's what I'd offer:
1) When you feel like giving up, give it another shot and push yourself harder than you did before.
2) Put aside any personal negative emotions that you may be having. Don't project them onto other people, whether or not they were a contributing factor. It always comes down to your attitude.
3) Even if you are timid and don't feel like you are good leader, you can make it work as long as you keep 1 and 2 in mind.
Good luck! You got this!
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