For most of my life, I found group work to be intimidating and truly almost stifling when it came to generating and refining good ideas, as I and my group members all fought to do our own concepts on what the final result should be rather than collectively agreeing and working to create our best result. But through my time at UW-Bothell and within the IAS program I have found that collaborating with others can actually be a way to get your own idea out there even better than you may have been able to do alone, and being supported by your group members is an invaluable method for creating the best end result. It has taught me that through communication, critical reflection and creative collaboration, working with others can help generate and refine ideas like never before. Additionally, I have been able to hone my skills in communicating and in leading, ensuring all group members are feeling heard and contributing equitably and with a feeling of having leverage in creating our work together.
One of my pieces, “Farnaz Fassihi Biography,” is as the title suggests, the story and telling of Farnaz Fassihi’s life. It mentions her childhood, education, and adult life as a war correspondent and journalist, among many other things. This biography is a part of something much larger, an entire book of biographies and artwork, that I created with my entire class in the spring of 2023. For this class, I wrote my piece, then had it edited by classmates, while I edited theirs too. We all contributed, we all led our own specific divisions, and we all maintained constant communication, with our vested interest in seeing our book succeed. This class and this assignment in particular displays my ability to creatively collaborate and it is a great example of my ability to communicate effectively and respectfully across differences. As a proof-reader, I spent countless hours outside of the classroom editing, correcting, and reworking essays and keeping in contact with classmates while responding to their questions and comments, as we developed our pieces into their final forms.
Another one of my pieces that really shows my collaborative skills is titled “Happy Days.” Whereas the last one was more of an example of leadership and collaboration combined, this one is purely collaboration. As a two person project, and a very open-ended one at that, this piece really demanded my partner and I to trust each other and to never commit too strongly to one idea, in case it failed. And it failed, quite often in fact, but with every time that we returned to the drawing board, we began trusting each other more. We were creating an art piece, with very limited supplies, as we identified the dimensions of the project we had to generate ideas that would work with the few things that we really had. In this piece I listened, reflected, and both took the wheel at times, and willingly sat in the backseat too.
These two projects were collaborative efforts that I could have never done before my time as part of the IAS program, utilizing collaborative and shared leadership skills to ensure we created the best final product we possibly could have. Through these skills, we all learned how to manage our groups and respectfully and creatively communicate all of our concerns, intentions, and ideas, and these are skills that I know I will use for many years to come.