Mindfulness
Throughout my college career, I have never been a huge fan of collaborative group projects. I know instructors like to assign these projects to teach us future professionals how to work together with others, however that does not change my opinion of them. Each time I get a syllabus for a course and I see there is a group project to do I casually scan the room to see who seems like they may be a good fit to work with. During my time at UH Manoa, my courses have consistently had different schoolmates each semester, so I have had a variety of group partners thus far. So far in my time in the Social Work program I have had good luck with group partners and this continued with this presentation on mindfulness. This particular group project we did not choose our own groups, rather it was a process facilitated by our instructor. I was not opposed to this method as sometimes picking group members can be a daunting task. The first method he tried to use was picking groups based on our geographic living area that way it would be easier for us to meet up outside of class time. This method however did not work for our class because there was a disproportionate amount of students per area on the Island. I was a bit discouraged because I do not live close to campus so meeting up outside of group times can be stressful if I have to travel to campus on a day there is not class. The second method the instructor chose was by random draw of numbers. I was paired with two wonderful ladies, and have been pleased with our time working together. The two ladies I was paired with are fantastic students. When we learned of our pairing we introduced ourselves because this was our first time having class together. We exchanged numbers and decided to meet up on an upcoming weekend. One of the group members suggested we consider doing our presentation on the topic Mindfulness. She asked if we were familiar with it and since none of us considered ourselves too knowledgeable