HON 490: Directed Study
While I never got the opportunity to engage in a typical study abroad experience, I did complete my requirements through the HON 490 course. When Covid-19 hit and my chances of traveling abroad before my junior and senior year were ended, I was feeling disappointed. However, when the opportunity to work alongside Dutch students in a virtual platform came about, I knew immediately I wanted to fulfill my requirements through this experience. In the course, we worked in groups of 4 to create and advertise a social innovation related to the pandemic. Our final project consisted of a visual advertisement, a podcast, and a trailer for the podcast. In the groups, two students were from Longwood and two were from the Netherlands.
While this project was such a fun experience, there were definitely some challenges. First, communicating with our Dutch counterparts become difficult with the time differences and different technological platforms. Additionally, at times, it was difficult to evenly split up the work among group members to ensure that everyone was having a fulfilling experience. The project moved very quickly, so it was important to keep all group members on task from beginning to end.
Regardless of the challenges, however, many important skills were learned that can help me in my future. For example, coming into this project, one of my largest goals was to expand my cultural viewpoint. While I consider myself very openminded, I knew I had a biased perspective of what I thought a Dutch person would be like. Coming into the project, I wanted to eliminate this bias and get to learn about their culture in a deeper sense. I truly believe I did just this, as I made strong connections with my Dutch counterparts and learned an incredible amount about their lives and culture. In addition to this, I also strengthened my communication skills, time management skills, and creativity. Overall, this experience is something I will always look back on, and I am so grateful that I was able to be apart of it!
Loading…
Reload document 
Open in new tab (Attached above is an artifact of my group’s visual infographic for our podcast, “Covid-19: Connecting the World Once Again”, Bailey Nixon, Jessica Donahue, Bas Feijen, & Leonie Smeding, April 2021).