Blog Post #6

How strange that it's already been an entire semester! I can still very clearly recall the pre-meeting jitters of my first Chat Cafe. I was unsure what to expect, then, but I have a good grasp on how I feel now; in a small, but significant way, the Chat Cafes have allowed me to engage with the international community on campus, and have shaped my views on multiculturalism, and the experience of living and studying abroad. And, perhaps most importantly, I have had the singular pleasure of getting to know two wonderful students!

I've been reflecting on the fundamentals of my Chat Cafe experience, and how I might be able to improve. Time and available credits allowing, I would very much like to continue facilitating meetings next semester, and there's a lot that can be gleaned from this first experience that I'd like to keep in mind for next time. For instance, as we met weekly at Espresso Royale, I had trouble at our first meeting figuring out who was there for the Chat Cafe -- in the future I might pick a not quite so public place for an initial meeting, or I might make explicit where I'll be and what color shirt I'll be wearing beforehand, just to eliminate confusion. These kinds of organizational and logistic pitfalls will be easier to avoid now that I'm aware of them. Attendance is an issue that falls somewhat outside the realm of my control, but I've been thinking that maybe Sweetland could ask students to answer a few very brief short answer questions before placement into groups, so as to create a sense of a structured, formal program. Because the Chat Cafe system is meant to be casual, I would never want to enforce attendance, but if students felt like they were part of an offical, "formal-ish" Sweetland initiative, understood their commitment, and were prepared to follow through on the onset, perhaps that could have deterred them from skipping so often.

Regardless of the attendance issues, which we've discussed at length during class times, I've been very happy with the overall vibe of the weekly meet-ups. I've been very lucky that two members of my group have attended consistently and have demonstrated both interest and engagement in the Chat Cafes. Prior to this semester, my understanding of the international community was very much constrained to my own experience, and I often committed the mistake of homogenizing the backgrounds of multicultural students I wasn't familiar with. However, meeting Paige and Natalia, and really getting to know the both of them, has opened my eyes to the very real individuality and variability present in the international community.