training reflections

TRAINING REFLECTIONS

we asked several of your fellow Fellows what they thought of the UIF training

Belinda Harris University of Canberra, Australia

What was your first impression of training?

I was excited by the opportunities in the training, but at the same time felt very intimidated by the content. My background is in architecture and I wasn’t sure I had the skills to undertake such a challenging program in a completely new subject area. The design-thinking topics caught my attention straight away. I was curious to see if I could abstract the intellectual and conceptual frameworks developed through architecture and then use these concepts as a scaffold to support the innovative content in the UIF program. I felt I was able to achieve this, and I’m hungry for further training and challenges.

What surprised you?

Completing the landscape canvas opened my eyes to the potential available at the University of Canberra (UC). UC is a smaller university and I was not aware of all the incredible research, innovation and entrepreneurship opportunities available. There is a lot happening on campus or in the pipeline but much of it is hidden unless you go looking for it. Senior management was also open to developing student ideas and experimenting, which is positive for student enrichment and the future growth of the university.

One of the best things that happened during training was that the assignments helped our cohort to bond better and led to us interacting more and understanding each other in a better way. The training paved the way for all our future activities. - Sanjana Mamdapur, KLS GIT, India

We all came from different backgrounds and academic disciplines. Teamwork was the one thing that helped us to come together and achieve our common goals. Today, we are closer than we ever imagined. This journey helped me make great friends and memories for life. - Neha Patil, KLS GIT, India

For the first time, I worked together on a project with students from other departments who were pursuing different degrees. And it was incredibly valuable to exchange expertise and work together towards a common goal. - Lara von Däniken, Hochschule Luzern, Switzerland

Rodrigo López Universidad de Montevideo, Uruguay

What was the most valuable thing you learned in training?

I always believed that the most important thing before starting any group work is knowing and caring about your team. At the end of the day, we are all people, with interests, feelings, and if you invest a few minutes before moving on to the work itself, it will not only boost your productivity and make you happier around your group, but you might also make some new friends! I think that reassuring that feeling during the training was very important for me. The most surprising thing I experienced was how the best ideas can come when you are not thinking about the problem, or maybe working on them in the background. The definition of serendipity. For us, gathering on weekends to have dinner, going to a park to talk about life, or even studying together although we don’t study the same majors almost always ended up in having moments of sudden inspiration for the challenges to be solved.

Any other thoughts?

Overall, this journey has been amazing, the UIF community is still growing at our university, and every day more students believe in what we do. We got a lot of tools we use for life, but most importantly, we formed an amazing human group. I really recommend getting to meet your team very well, definitely, it can make the process more fun, entertaining, and better ideas will come out for sure. Start by asking about the interests of your peers, you may discover something you have in common or even take up a new hobby! If you don’t know what things you have in common, here’s one: UIFamily!

Sole Artom IE University, Spain

What was the journey of your team?

The work with my team had its ups and downs, but we managed to overcome the challenges we faced and learned to work together with a really good dynamic. As we were not a premade group, we had to get to know each other and understand the best way to work together. After a few initial disagreements, we started sharing the same motivation and goals for this project, making us a stronger group and also simply a group of friends.

Can you share a time when your team overcame an obstacle?

Once we established our four strategic priorities and presented them to our stakeholders, we realized none of them had the full potential of becoming our main project. This was really harsh and demotivating, as we believed we were doing the training wrong, and never really understood our main goal. However, we later met for an entire afternoon at Sophiia’s house, and between cake, tea and open discussions, we finally came up with our last and final idea on how might we inspire students more and started working straight away on the development of our project, finding again all that motivation that always drove us before.