Be Patient

This September, I moved from Chile to Tallinn and started my Masters in Communication Management. This is my first time living abroad and I arrived here very excited about meeting new people from all around the world. New cultures have always attracted me very much, and I’ve always wanted to have intercultural experiences, where people from very different backgrounds can meet and get to know a bit more about the world we live in.

The telecollaboration was a very pleasant surprise for me. I was excited and I started the collaboration with very high spirits. My expectations were to meet fun new mates from another culture, and I was very open to meet them and work together. I also had many prejudices coming from Latin America. Usually, because we usually do not have a good opinion of US folks: self-centred, they do not know much from other countries, they are too individualistic…so I had to be patient! I have met US people before, but I was very enthusiastic in meeting more of them and actually doing research together.

Since day one, both of my US mates were very nice and respectful. It surprised me that one of them did not know what WhatsApp was! Me and my TLU friend (from Germany) assumed that everyone would be okay connecting through this platform, and one of the US students never even heard of it before. He was nice enough to download it and install it and so we went on with the discussions.

Time was definitely not valued the same way. My general impression after the whole process is that both my TLU mate and I valued time schedules very much. Somehow, our classmates from Louisiana University were late to zoom meetings, or even one time they did not show up because they did not know they had classes at the same time of our meeting! In spite of all these hiccups, somehow we always would manage to meet. The conversations we had were not as deep as I expected, and I realized very quickly that it was not as easy as I imagined it… so I had to be patient!

My TLU friend and me were very goal oriented, very clear and wanted an organized schedule. We would be practical in the meetings and directly manage everything. In some cases, I asked everyone how they were, in an effort to be warmer and to see if they would become more participative as I asked for some personal context. I am not sure it helped. Our US mates were not as proactive; they did not ask very much, waited for me and the other TLU girl to leader meetings, and take the following steps. The difference between managing styles was a little overwhelming… so I had to be patient!

As the weeks went by, some of my other classmates from TLU would complain that their US contra parts would not answer the messages until the very last day, or even would not show up to the zoom meetings. I was shocked, and realised that my group was not doing so badly, especially after the first grade. We did very well, and that gave me a lot more confidence to keep going.

It was very beautiful to realise we had similar backgrounds in many things: the way our families were constituted, how we grew up, how we viewed ourselves and many of our interests. We had so much in common! This was very interesting and in each task, we would highlight these facts.

Each one of my mates were very respectful and nice. Nevertheless, my TLU mate and I were never completely satisfied with the way they worked: we were the ones taking decisions on how to proceed and they would meet the minimum goal. After every meeting, we would put together a chart that each of us filled, and then I would be the one writing all the content and my TLU mate would design the final product. I like writing, so for me it was not a problem… but I still keep thinking if my US mates really cared, or if they realized that, we were doing much of the work. This has left me thinking very much: is not easy at all to communicate these issues. We were all agreeing with this system, and I never directly complain with them, because we got good grades, so I kept going with all the writing, even when I am sure I made some mistakes, as I am not a native English speaker. In one opportunity, I asked them to review the work after I wrote, and they were very nice about my request, but never actually did it… so I had to be patient.

I believe we learned a lot in this experience. I now am less naive about how collaborating with different cultures may imply. Communication is very complex and in workspaces, things can get intense when frustration, anger or resentment appear. I did not get to the point of feeling those intense emotions, but I understand now how, in some situations, these levels could get very high… being patient was helping!

I have a long way to go, because it was hard for me to delegate or be clearer with the fact that I was putting the majority of the work over my shoulders. I took this responsibility when I knew that the system was working, but by the end of the process, I was not happy about it. Next time, I need to be braver and more honest and direct with the team, expressing respectfully how I am feeling.

Even though we had an entire semester of work, I believe this was just a glance of what an intercultural collaboration can be: a very interesting, fulfilling and challenging experience. I am looking forward to have more experiences as this! Thank you, Professors Dr Anastassia Zabrodskaja and Dr Sara Kim!