My connectedness experience.

My campus connectedness goal has been able to socialize outside the classroom. During my time at
this university I have observed in myself a tendency to only befriend people whom I see every day in
class or in the department. Now that I look back on my high school years, I notice the trend started
from there: virtually all my friends were my school friends, and they were my friends because I saw
them every day. Using the Gibbs reflection cycle, I am in the process of understanding my whole
outside-the-school socializing experience from a deeper emotional level, from recognizing isolating
patterns to working on roadblocks I face when I make attempts to socialize. In this particular essay,
by using the Gibbs reflection cycle, I will delineate my emotional experience and my skills’
progression as I work on my socializing skills.

The Gibbs reflective cycle: For continuous learning, reflective practice is a technique that is widely
used. In this instance, I will use the Gibbs reflective cycle to analyze a situation I encountered in the
university while working on improving my socializing skills.

Description: Some time ago, I made an effort to socialize outside the classroom by joining a debating
society inside the university. In the first debating session, I intended to participate as an observer.
However, due to the absence of one of the regular debaters, I decided to stand in and participate.
When it was my turn to speak (each speaker to talk for seven minutes), I froze in the beginning, and
for about a minute up there on the stage, I did not talk. Eventually, I did start. Midway through the
speech, I stopped again and then I could not start again. I came back and sat down in my chair.

Feelings: As someone who had never seen a full debate before let alone participated in one, the
start of this experience made me feel nervous. I have a fear of speaking in public, and on top of that,
I probably have a mild social anxiety. Before the debate started, I was happy with my decision to
participate. At that time, I was thinking that this was something I was doing because I had decided to
work towards improving myself as a person, by participating in things which took me out of my
comfort zone. As soon as it was time to walk to the stage, I could feel sweat forming on my
forehead. It was certainly much easier to observe others talking from a distance and notice things
they should have done better on. But when I was up there, I forgot about everything I had prepared.
I was anxious and then I was panicking.

After I decided to call it a day and came back down from the stage, I felt relieved that it was over. At
the same time, I felt embarrassed because at that time I thought that people were judging me
intensely, and in a negative way. To my surprise, my teammate said I had done a decent job
presenting the points logically, albeit for a short time. I chalked that down to him being a nice
person, and I felt as if, due to myself, the whole experience for everyone around me was subpar.
Clearly, I was in a negative state of mind. Internally, I blamed my sweater for making me sweat.

Evaluation: If I look back at the event in isolation, that was a pretty bad performance by me.
However, considering the fact that I was participating in a debating event for the first time, and that I
showed eagerness to take part, and that I was brave enough to walk up to the stage and do my best,
I think the whole event was a beneficial experience for me. If I had to go through all of that again, I
would. During the speech, I could feel that people were listening intently, and perhaps that is what
got to me. I noticed that when I have the attention of the room, I become too focused on trying to
say something smart and to make them engaged. My focus was on entertaining and pleasing people,
and I had done a less-than-stellar job at that. However, I was not there to entertain anyone, but I
was there to put myself out of my comfort zone, and in that regard, I had done a good job.

Analysis: I feel as if I need to be more forgiving of myself for making mistakes and for not being
immediately good at something. To perform like that in the first debate was normal. I realize that as
soon as the debate was over, I entered a cycle of self-loathing. My defense mechanisms became
activated and I started finding excuses for what had happened. I overthought the significance of
doing bad in a debate. People mess up on the stage all the time. Instead of entering a cycle of over
thinking, perhaps I should have just accepted that as a part of the learning process and continued. I
did not pay attention to the positive comment made by my teammate, which is something that I
should have done. My focus should have been on playing up the positives and playing down the
negatives. However, despite all that, I now feel happy that I see the insignificance of messing up at
something that ultimately harms no one. I had mistakenly thought that the whole experience was
ruined for everyone around me; however, they were more than happy to welcome someone new on
board, and someone who had a passion similar to theirs!

Action Plan: By choosing to look at the event in depth and by not sweeping it under the rug as a
younger version of me would have done, I feel better about taking steps to work on myself. I feel
that I will be okay even if I mess up a lot. Further, now I believe that instead of negatively judging
myself immediately, I should stay in the present moment more. For example, in this incidence I
should have interacted with my teammate and then after the debate I should have stuck around to
ask for feedback. In the future, I will now participate in a more engaging way, leaving negative
judgements of myself and others outside the door, and entering the debating hall only to learn.

Conclusion: This experience has helped me become a more connected member of the university. I
now feel that I am the middle of things, and I am someone who is doing more than just the bare
minimum. This experience of psychologically analyzing myself has turned that event from one that I
would have tried to forcefully forget, into one that I see as an important step in my journey of self-
improvement and emotional growth.