Overall, I would have to say that my experience working with the students of the IMK was an eye opener and an experience that I am grateful for. I know that many of my classmates had tremendous difficulties and it was quite obvious during our Friday presentations. During the first week one of the students I was paired with had terminated her studies at the IMK, therefore, I was left to work with only one German student. Him and I got along quite well I would have to say. We had some difficulties keeping in touch due to our poor Internet situation at the hostel. However, once coming together I felt that we worked well with one another. I think a large part of this can be attributed to the fact that he was well spoken in English. He had the opportunity to study for one year in the states during his high school career and then through the IMK he had an internship in London. His ability to communicate in the same language placed less of a language barrier on our group and allowed us to work efficiently.
During my second week I had the opportunity to work with two German students. This group was a bit different than the first week. There were different personalities this time, I worked with a male and female-the male student was very laid back and the female was a bit abrasive and liked to take charge. A lot of the times I felt that I was not on the same page as them as far as ideas we were throwing out and brainstorming on. During this week we were given the task to create fundraising tactics for an existing campaign on Sabah Rhinos. Some of the ideas that I was mentioning were based on my experiences from residing in the United States. I think the German students felt that these ideas were far-fetched or not traditional, therefore, probably would not work. I will say that I felt both of these students were very intelligent, although they were very nervous about their English. I had mentioned to them that there English was fine and that they should not be so hesitant about making mistakes. For this group overall I think that these details that this assignment called for placed much stress on the group because of the short time we had to work on it. However, besides our initial brainstorming issues, once we had a strategy it was easier to understand on another and our final project came together. The image displayed above on the right hand was our presentation of this assignment.
The last week seemed to be the most stressful for me. Although the task did not seem as difficult as the past weeks, there were many language difficulties this time around. One of the girls I was paired with had moved to Germany from South America a few months prior and the other girl was a native German who was not well spoken in English. I felt that when working in this group much of the time was spent looking up translations from English to German. Again I felt both these students were intelligent and hard workers. Due to the fact that there were so many problems with understanding one another due to their lack of ability in English and my complete lack of ability in German, this caused problems structurally for our assignment. I did get along with both students, but, felt that overall our project this week was not strong in terms of the handout and power point. My team the last week was the most eye opening, I would have to say that I learned that sometimes there is no way to break the barrier but the assignment must get done. I realized that final week that you have to do the best you can with translations and spend the time as productively as possible.
Overall, again like I said earlier I am very grateful to have had the experience. It gave insight into what it would be like to work in another location outside the United States. It presented some of the issues that you would face working with clients of a different culture. Much of the feedback and structure of the Friday presentations were different than one would experience back in the States. The clients were very critical when it came to feedback and the German students were extremely serious and hesitant to express themselves in any way that was out of the norm. The differences were interesting to me and something that I would love to gain more experience working with. From an IMC perspective the friday presentations demonstrated the importance of having clear understanding of messages internally and externally. If there is an internal problem it will be obvious to the client you are presenting to. On an external level if there is message complications the presentation will not be effective in getting the message across to your consumer, which ultimately is your most important task as an advertiser/marketer.
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