Reflection of Autoethnography of a Female International Student-Athlete

This was definitely an interesting process, never made a video for a class so I was very skeptical, honestly I think I am more of a writing a paper kind of guy. Technology somewhat interfered with my group. Sophie was the only one who knew how to work with imovie and had it on her computer. Which ended up Sophie doing a lot of the work in our group. Given the hectic schedule of exams as well, it was difficult to find times where we all could meet and what not as well. However I really enjoyed learning about Elisa’s back story, I thought my college transition was hard, going from a single-sex religious high school to Wake. Hearing her story was a humbling experience for me. She not only did not know anyone, but the native language of the United States: English. I would not have the pleasure of hearing this story had not we worked together. And then Sophie, I was not aware she started a nonprofit in high school until we started working together. I couldn’t tell you any high schoolers I know of who have the courage to do that and I think that is awesome. I definitely would say I got closer to these people toward this process. However I felt like this process was a bit rushed given were close to the semester ending, so, at times I think stress contributed to a somewhat hostile environment while we were working. I think what made this project different from the paper, was changing that audience to a broader one, so having to explain the different author’s background, and pictures, and video, and more emotional appeals to our audience. I think we all worked well as a group, it was a very open environment and our project contains all of ideas, not one person mostly. Honestly our process was pretty slow, Elisa had all her exams early in the week and Sophie and I had an exam on Saturday morning so, most of our project came together on Friday if I am being totally honestly. I definitely learned I am impatient when it comes to schoolwork, and I have trouble relying on others, so summing up I would say I do better working alone, where I decide how much progress I want to make/what to write or present about.

Nick

 

When I found out that the final project of the semester was a video, I was really surprised because I never imagined that we would create a video in a writing class. I thought that the only thing we were going to do during the semester, from its beginning to its end, was writing papers, but I was wrong. I was wrong because, first of all, we did not only write simple “papers”, but we travelled through words in different and challenging paths. Secondly, I learned that there are different ways in which a person can write. An individual can write a poem, an essay, a book, but also a video. I think that writing is more than putting words on a piece of paper, but it is sharing ideas, experiences, thoughts, details about what you have seen or lived. The video we made for Project 4 does this: it shares my personal experience as female international student-athlete at Wake Forest, it shares my difficulties and how I overcame them thanks to the support of family and coaches, for example. In this video, Nick, Sophie, and I share notions about what it means to be both a female athlete and an international student-athlete in college, we used also the experience of my French teammate. Creating a video has not been easy at all. I thought it could be faster, but it actually took a lot of time. We had to pay attention to the details, pay attention that the voice recordings matched the pictures and videos we integrated in our video, making sure that we were adding the right things, the right “they say” and “I say”… It was a lot of work. Honestly, I think Sophie did the major part of the job because we did not know if there was a way to share the video with i-movie and if it was possible to work on it from different computers. So, as Sophie’s computer was the only one with that program, she had to work on the creation of the video. I think she did an incredible job. I like the video so much. Nick and I worked on the script and we did the voice recordings. We were able to shoot some videos in the gym all together, but then it was difficult to work on the video all together because of problems with finding a time we all could meet. Nick and Sophie had been really great team members because they were available to do work without me. In fact, I was super busy the first two days of the week because of finals, and as I had to study a lot, I was not able to join them to work on the video. Nick and Sophie have been really kind, and they understood my situation. Despite this single episode in which they worked without me, we have been able during these two final weeks to find the right time and day to meet to create the video. I do think each of us put into this project a lot of effort. Seeing Sophie giving an exam on Friday and then being ready to work on the video right after it, or seeing Nick having a lot of stuff to do during the day, but being ready to work with us at night, after a busy day… these are all small things that count a lot, especially when there is a group project to do. We did a great team work in these two weeks in which we worked together. There have been challenges of course, such as finding time and day to meet, or deciding what type of pictures using, understanding where the right spot in the video was for each of them, making the recordings right (it is difficult to do a voice record while reading what you have to say… I thought it was easier!) , and also finding a table in Benson (this time of the semester is crazy, because everybody look for a spot where to study for finals or for prepare a presentation). But we were able to adapt to the situation, and find quiet places where to work and record the script. For example, we used the meditation room in Benson, or the mail room.

I think our video has all the elements we talked about in class during the whole semester. We thought about the questions “What”, “So what”., “Who cares” while we’re creating it, and I think we found answers to all of these three questions. For example, we tried to conclude the video with a type of conclusion that can make the audience reflect about the difficulties that female international student-athletes have to face and how people that surround us can actually be an active supporter and helper during our adjustment in college and to the new culture to make thee four years unforgettable. I think in this type of conclusion we want to call to attention a problem to those who maybe never thought about this argument. We tried to really maintain a smooth organization, with a broad beginning about who I am, where I come from, and why I am in the united States, and then we became more specific, going into the thesis area, explaining the biggest difficulties I had to overcome, and how I did it (support). I think our video has a good balance of “they say” and “I say”. We incorporated three scholarly articles and the interview I made to my French teammate too. We used a lot of pictures found on the web but also my personal pictures of when I was just a child and also when I was older.

Finally, I would like to say that it is been a pleasure working with Nick and Sophie, because they have been more than great, they have been fantastic. They had work ethic, availability, they were helpful, comprehensive, they listened and shared ideas, and they have been respectful. These are all great and important qualities when people have to work together. Creating this video about my autoethnography has been difficult, as I said before there have been a lot of challenges, but it also has been fun. We had fun together, we had a good time. I like when in a team people have fun while working hard. It is the right spirit to use when a team has to approach a tough, in this case, project. I enjoyed it, and i am sure that Nick and Sophie enjoyed it too. Working together has been a pleasure.

Elisa

 

When I found out Project 4 was a group project, I was actually very excited. I know the stereotypical thought of a group project is that one person does all the work, but this was not the case in ours. I thought our team did a really good job of carrying even weight. I also thoroughly enjoyed working with both of them because group work is always better than doing things on your own. I think Nick and I can both agree we found Elisa’s story fascinating. I think the implementation of a video project is really teaching us how to deliver to an audience with clear purpose. With it being a busy week with exams and everything, scheduling for our team to meet was not always very easy. I think when we did meet though, we were very productive. Like I said, I think everyone carried their weight and I did not feel as though one person was left with all the work. We all contributed to the script, the recordings, and the video.

We decided to use Elisa’s story for our project because we found it to be both challenging and inspiring. It was very cool to not only explore her identity as an athlete, but to dive deeper and explore her identity as a female athlete and international athlete. We incorporated Allport, Popp, and other relative sources as they say. We also used a lot of I say because Elisa herself had a lot of evidence. We also used evidence from Elisa’s teammate, Clarisse. I thought this was a key part to our video because it showed another perspective of the struggles female international athletes have to face. For our project, we used imovie which I thought was a pretty easy tool to use.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this project. I thought it was a good ending because utilized all we had learned throughout the clas. We were able to work in a group which made it easier to come up with ideas and support for our project. I thought Nick and Elisa were both phenomenal in the process of making this project. They both were flexible with time and ideas and were both always ready to help in any way they could. They were dedicated to making a good project and were very considerate team members. Overall, I have really enjoyed this project and really liked the video we have produced.

Sophie