Hello there, from Thanksgiving and Christmas break! I hope you are all chilling at your various homes, eating all the turkey or other various Thanksgiving favorites and spending time with people who you probably haven’t seen in a long time. First off, I want to say, congratulations to everybody, we made it to the end of fall semester, and that was no small feat. This year has been one for the books for all of us, so as we celebrate the Holidays, let’s not forget what and who we are grateful for. Community may have looked a little different this year, but when you look at the way we’ve had to adjust and adapt, it’s pretty amazing. Speaking for a large amount of Taylor students (myself included) learning how to adapt with collaboration was a newly introduced challenge to us this year. Shout out to my quarantine pals, who stood by me through feelings of confusion, loneliness, and sometimes lack of motivation.
Collaborating with people isn’t necessarily easy. Long-distance collaboration seems even harder. Here are some things I learned over quarantine this semester with regards to collaboration and staying connected. To preface, I think my quarantine time was a bit of an outlier for most; I wasn’t able to go home and I wasn’t a fan of staying in my dorm for 2 weeks, (yeah too stir crazy for me) so I ended up packing up and hightailing it over to my grandmother’s lake house (don’t worry folks, she wasn’t there, she was at my place, hence why I wasn’t able to go there…) anyway, so here I am, in the middle of nowhere in IL for 2 weeks. How did I survive not going CRAZY during it? Here’s a little list of ways to collaborate for you.
1) First, talk to people every day. Whether it’s through zoom or calling in, get some type of community.
2) When you are not in quarantine, check in on your friends who are in quarantine. The feelings that you gain through your experience are probably pretty similar to what they are experiencing as well.
3) Establish times to zoom with your group projects. This might not be as fun or easy, but make them know that even though you are not on campus you are still a contributor to the team and want to help out to the best of your abilities.
4) SHOW UP to your zoom classes, and participate in group breakout sessions. Fam, I cannot tell you how awkward it is, just all sitting in zoom not doing anything. Throw out your inhibitions, and just start talking to people.
5) Do homework with friends. How? Over the phone. IRL, you don’t have to talk to your friend the whole time in order to experience being with one another. Doing homework with someone else is a great example of that. Being on the phone and doing homework might be a little strange at first, however you will get to experience that other person presence that is so valuable.
6) Have a structured schedule of your day, and have virtual meals/coffee dates with your friends.
The dictionary definition of collaboration is,
-The action of working with someone to produce or create something.-
When you are alone, sometimes it might be challenging to feel that connectivity you’d get from being with someone else, but that doesn’t mean it is impossible! It’s just not as easy to do, which in turn, has made me take community less for granted. I did a lot of collaborating over quarantine; I worked on study guides, group projects, group zooms, papers, work, I even got to do a photoshoot (*side note, I am a photographer). But that only happens when you are intentional about it. During quarantine I was reminded about the verse in Hebrews 10:24-25 which says,
“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”
I encourage you all to find ways to collaborate with one another through these next few weeks where we are all apart. Get creative, to create creatively.
Peace out my dudes,
Sophia Guo
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