#2: Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

Each head is a world; this phrase is a very famous Mexican expression that we used to refer that every person is different and they have diverse opinion about one topic and we need to listen every opinion to create a better idea.

My story begin in my first year of my career, I found a lot of new friends in my school most of them are from different countries like Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Colombia, etc… so in that time one of my best friends (V) was foreign, we started to spend a lot of time together inside and outside of the school (we study the same career). We had very good moments together. To the point that we decided be roommates.

However we started having problems. We were team in all of our modules that we shared, each team should consists of  3-4 people, so when we had to do some team activities “V” always had few activities to do but also she selected the parts that are less time to do. At first was fine for me, but when I realized that all the time "V" had not done her work in time, and she always told me that I ought to help her to finish her part, because we are friend, and the friends all the time support. I was very surprised and I decided to talk to her and tell her that she needs to differentiate the friendship and the work, because there are two different things, it’s true that friends can help us in diverse situation but not all the time and not with all the things at the same time it’s true that everyone need to work hard to get what you want.

I think we should have never talked about it because "V" change their attitude towards me, at first she started letting be part of my team, then she left to spend time with me at the point that she now does not talk with me. However the next semester will be the last semester for the both and I wish I could talk with her to remember the old days. Do you think it's a good  idea? If it is, how can I start to talk whit she?

#1: Effective Communication

Singapore here I am, I had to go a long way to study a semester abroad, a dream that became a reality on August 1st, the day that I arrive to Singapore and NUS particular, thereby a new life started: another country with many different cultures, foods, styles life, but the most spectacular, with several language… After the first hours in Singapore in my mind I thought: "Wow it’s so cool that here are many culture and everyone with their own language…but wait a minute, I don’t speak Chinese, neither Hindi, neither Malay…I’m in troubles!!!". However I was very impress when I heard and saw how all of this people could communicate them.

However with the pass of the days I saw that no everyone could communicate effectively, even I couldn't express some ideas in the correct way. Therefore I believe that effective communication it's essential in every part of the world at any time because we can communicate not only with verbal forms but also with the no verbal forms (facial expressions, gestures, body language, …)

Thus, effective communication skills are also important for me in many ways: like an exchange student because if I want to express one idea or just have a simple conversation I need chose the correctly words and also do the right gestures; like an aspiring engineer, I need to be constantly aware of what I say, what I think, of what I write, since an error for any misunderstanding can be catastrophic for a design, a calculation, or a project.  With this I am not saying I want to be perfect, but at least I have the notion of ​​what I am doing.