Last week, we had a workshop on Communicating Science, and I really enjoy it.
At the very beginning, I thought I was not good at communication because of my introvert personality, fear of eye ahead and non-native English speaking. Besides, I did not like networking with people except for close friends because that made me feel stressed. Dr. Kroehler told us that we should not focus on ourselves too much in a conversation. Instead, we need to listen deeply and try to understand others with curiosity. I realized my self-consciousness during conversations and then decided to shift the attention away from constant self-judgments. Although I cannot change myself at once, this awareness reduces my stress to interact with people.
Dr. Kroehler also helped us to connect our research to our personal background. She asked us to think about what personal experience led us to be a researcher and add more personal elements into the study talk. Before this, I thought that in order to show the unbiasedness of my study, my speech should be very objective without own feelings.
That workshop gave us a safe place to experiment with multiple expressive possibilities through playing games. Now I know why little kids learn much faster than adults. Because they view learning as playing games, while adults always tag life events with successes or failures. I’m thrilled to learn and play like a “kid” and get to know many classmates through interesting games.
