UCD Institutional Affiliation Questions

For this challenge, you will provide a short write-up that discusses the following (you can choose to write about one option or about both):

Option 1: Consider a time when you unintentionally communicated a message to someone. Describe what happened? How did this person(s) interpret your message? What were the consequences? How did you know that was their interpretation? What steps did you take to correct the misinterpretation, if any? If you didn’t take steps to correct the misunderstanding, why? Would you try now? What would you do? Do you still have a relationship with this person? Did the relationship suffer because of this?

Option 2: Also, have you ever said something and then instantly regretted it? Tell us ALL about that. What happened? What did you say? To whom? Where were you? Who else was around? What were the consequences? Did you try to “fix it”? If so, how? If not, why? Do you still have a relationship with this person? Did the relationship suffer because of this?

FOR BOTH OPTIONS INCLUDE: Describe, in detail, how did you feel? How do you think they felt? What did you learn from the experience(s)? Be specific.

FOR THE WRITE-UP, it should be in story or narrative form. Don’t necessarily answer the questions in order if it doesn’t help your story flow. Make your story compelling and interesting but also be sure to tell us what you learned from the experience(s).

Why? Many consider communication a common-sense practice, just because we all engage in the practice. Through this exercise, we can see how important it is to communicate well and to consider that our intent doesn’t always meet the mark. True communication competence requires SO many skill sets, working together well, seamlessly.