How Teamwork Changed My Life

That comment on the first day of school was a turning point for me. I learned quickly to embrace all my weirdness and that being Blasian (black/Asian) is fantastic. I have two completely different stories to tell when I talk about my family. I have proven to myself and to my peers that I don't have fit a particular stereotype, I’m good at science, and I can run quickly. High school has been tough, but I’ll leave more resilient and mature than I was three years

Growing up in Chicago, I attended a neighborhood school from preschool through first grade. Although it was an exceptional school for elementary kids, the education for middle school and high school students was not as adequate. Seeking a better place to raise their children, my parents were faced with a tough choice. When I was in 2nd grade, our family made the decision to move to the suburbs. On July 3rd, we all packed into our Honda minivan and drove 45 minutes to a new home in the town of Winnetka. Within my first year at Crow Island, my new school, I learned so many new things. I started playing the violin and speaking Spanish, neither of which were offered at my old school. I met my best friends that I'm still close with now. Over the

I was about to face my greatest challenge in my new life. How to fit in with people in middle school. Arriving in America was already hard to adjust, what more can it be with my school life. It was in August when my school started. I was already nervous, and I haven’t even step foot from this mysterious school that I’m about to spend 2 years of my life.

I had no knowledge of the English language or American culture. I never knew any other culture past my hometown’s. A fish out of water, I struggled as a first grader to learn the language, assimilate into the different culture filled with people with different physical features. I felt

Since coming to America, I have moved to an ample amount of places because my father’s job concerns. I changed school frequently and in each new school I was never greeted with a warm welcome. With one glance my classmates saw I was different from them. I was often bullied and teased because of my racial difference from my classmates, from these experiences I became a quiet and docile girl. This way I thought I would not get in anyone’s way. I had closed up in the world in front of me; I never expressed my own opinions and always agreed with the majority. However secretly inside of me, I was frustrated not being able to express myself and yet I was unable to change. I craved to be what I was in the inside to be on the outside. Still by

It was the year 2008, I had just graduated from St. Michael’s School located in Los Angeles, CA. This year was quite exhilarating for me also scary because I was going to attend an all-girls high school. Los Angeles was my birth place also a place where I called home. One day, I came home to hearing my parents talking about moving to Mississippi. I remained devastated, not only we were moving to the south, I’m moving away from childhood friends. I was worried I wouldn’t see them again and I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to make new friends in Mississippi.

When we were traveling to America we faced many difficulties, but once we made it to our Aunt's house in Virginia we knew it was going to be a great, yet grueling experience. When I first started going to school it seemed as if I was on another planet. Everyone looked different, spoke a strange language, and had a distinct mindset then me; the life of a kid should seem easy because there isn’t anything to worry about, yet worrying about everything was my coping mechanism. When I entered middle school depression and anger hit me like a freight train, so much to the point where I almost committed suicide. Fighting my so called friends for “fun” and not caring about my future was my life for those

If an officer cannot be accountable or responsible, he or she will lose the respect from other officers. Teamwork will be at jeopardy because no one will be able to trust this officer. If the officer was responding to a call, he or she might have difficulty finding a fill for backup. Even if an officer was accountable and responsible, teamwork is essential in this profession. There is no “lone-wolf” in this profession because law enforcement is a team effort. Everyone has to learn how to get along in order to protect the public above all else.

Growing up as a Vietnamese boy in Tulsa, Oklahoma was difficult. Prior to moving from San Jose, California, my parents had recently divorced. My father wanted nothing to do with us, so my mother, sister, and I moved to Broken Arrow when I was six years old, where my mother had some friends she knew. Starting in the first grade, I had always had trouble fitting in at school. It’s a problem that has haunted me every day since I had moved. The other kids would always pick on me when I was in elementary school. They were often racist, and in a few occasions they were violent.

Moving from Los Angeles to Chicago for my dad’s work left me marred with a longing for year-round sunshine, palm trees, and mountainous horizons – things that most Midwesterners can’t even imagine. As a Korean and Caucasian, I leave people confused with which racial slurs to throw at me (“white rice” is the most clever one yet). In first grade, my parents pulled me from school to teach me how to think for myself through homeschooling. Ironically, it was with this same sentiment that I applied eight years later to Chicago Hope Academy, another place where I’d be different. As a sophomore transfer, I was unfamiliar with rappers like Drake, Eminem, or Tupac everyone around me praised. I wasn’t used to words like “finna,” let alone the Spanish spoken by my soccer teammates as I was the only Asian-Caucasian in the student body. But at this time in my life, I realized that you learn the most about yourself when you're surrounded by those who are different from you. Several years later, my closest friends include an avid atheist (and former Buddhist), the sixth best soccer player in Illinois, and a survivor of fatal heart surgery who shouldn’t be alive – I couldn’t find a more diverse community of

Every experience we encounter presents us with a chance to grow, to overcome difficulties, and expand our minds. We are the result of our life experiences, which are the foundations of personal growth and development. Any one experience will have its own effect and lasting impact on our identities, but it is the culturally diverse experiences, like those I have and will continue encounter at Washington Technology Magnet School that will remain a part of me and my future as a multicultural educator in the years to come.

The first year living in America, I went to fourth grade at a local public school. I was ostracized from my peer groups and bullied because of my Asian features and my limited vocabulary. It was a new beginning, they said, a second chance, a better opportunity. Yet I felt trapped, betrayed, and lost.

“Can we talk about moving to Minnesota?”, my father would ask. “I don’t want to, ” I’d always responded. This lasted for four years, my father always looking towards the future, my future, but never willing to press me towards the opportunities he saw. I had friends, an expansive yard where I could play, take pictures, observe the wildlife, a quaint home in a quaint neighborhood attending a quaint school in northern Mississippi, and each time the question came up, a feeling of fear welled up as I thought about how different it would all be, really the complete opposite: a rural home to a suburban apartment, a school with fewer than a thousand students for grades K-12 to one quadruple the size, a world with friends, one without. Eventually, after my eighth grade year, I let in to my father and allowed logic to clear the emotions that

Andrew Carnegie, the eminent American industrialist and philanthropist, said “Teamwork is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results”. This fuel generates the drive and motivation necessary for a group of people to come together and work towards a common interest. I have always been amazed by the amount of success a cohesive team achieves while pursuing its goal. However, I have experienced it first hand and know that a team can be chaotic and inefficient when influenced by a few factors. Over the last three weeks, I have learned a great deal on various elements affecting an organization. One key lesson among them is the factors which can make or break a team, leaving long-lasting impact on an organization.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of working in teams? By reference to relevant theory show how can the disadvantages be reduced or avoided.