My perspective on the virtual exchange

Hi everyone! group 17 “Traditional events” co-leader Elisa here.  I can’t believe this is the actual final entry I’m writing for this blog; time flew so fast! Even though I’m partly relieved this project is ending so I can focus more on my thesis, I am quite sad about it too.

The last time I spoke this much in Japanese was two years ago, when I was an exchange student at the Yokohama City University. Even for students like us who learn Japanese and take language lessons at the university there are not that many occasions to actively practice it in many contexts. That’s why projects like this one hold an incommensurable value for people who want to raise their language proficiency level.

Aside from the obvious linguistic aspect of this project, there are other things worthy of praise in my opinion. Since my management skills have never been great, at the beginning of the project I was a bit worried I wasn’t suited enough to be in charge of the group I was assigned to. However, even though there have been some problems I think I managed to fulfill my role quite well and I’m sure the experience I gained will be useful to me in the future whether it will be for another group project or for work reasons. Also, I think my role in this project taught me not to undervalue myself and not to back out of challenges even if I’m not sure I’m the best person for the job.

Furthermore, one of the main reasons I found this experience enjoyable was thanks to the project members I got to work with. Both in my project group and during the free conversation classes I found some people who were really easy to work with and open to any kind of conversation, which made this experience very enjoyable. Exchanging ideas, personal experiences end knowledge was very fun and I found myself looking forward to the weekly group meeting and free conversation classes.

In conclusion, even though everything concerning Slack was a bit frustrating at times, the good parts of this project vastly outnumber the bad parts. I already started to recommend the virtual exchange to some friends so this probably tells my feelings more than anything.

Thanks for reading!