The five stages of any team or group are forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. During my undergraduate program, it was very difficult to go through the adjourning stage with my classmates. It was a very complex bittersweet feeling because although we were all eager to graduate and get it done with, that feeling of emptiness was there because there was not going to be any more long study nights, team meetings, and shared assignments.
I do not anticipate having the same feeling once I am done with my graduate program because Walden is an online University and is very different when you get to know the people face to face like my undergraduate on ground studies.
The closing rituals we experienced was just agreeing we would meet at least monthly to catch up no matter how busy our lives would get. Unfortunately, shortly after graduation I moved out of town and that never happened making it even more difficult for me. I do think that high performing groups are harder to leave because we learned to have pride in our team and work hard to achieve our goal together
Dina, it is much easier to leave a group when you only know each other from online interactions. Even though many of us have been in multiple classes together, there is a big difference between knowing someone in person and knowing them online, especially when our contact is so short. I too moved away after graduating from high school and college (many years ago) and the friends that I had made did not keep in touch and I did not keep in touch with them because "life got in the way".
ReplyDeleteDina,
ReplyDeleteI think I have a different perspective on this on line interaction you talked about. Given, It may not be as concrete as one on one contact, but it has its own kind of affinity. I developed a bonding with a certain colleague in my first 2 classes. I have not been in class again with her since then but because I placed value of high achievement on her, I choose to retain contact with her and we sometimes exchange e mails. I have not met most people but I look forward to graduation, hoping to see some specific people. I really enjoy some people' s presence in classes and long to have them in class. I think they just make the class interesting and learning exciting.
Hello Melissa,
ReplyDeleteI can appreciate what you mean when you say that yours was bittersweet,
I remember when my sister graduated from high school and how she had talk, no1 bragged (politely like) about how she could not wait to get the heck out of Washington High. It was almost like a Twilight Zone moment. That is once they announce my sister’s name and she walked across the stage to receive her high school diploma our family was not able to locate her for hours. It was almost as if she had vanished. About five hours later we found her at home crying her eyes out. She was crying because once she thought about it she had lost a huger part of her daily routine…
Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI can relate to the feelings you had when graduating. I felt the same way when I went to an on ground college, while I was glad not to have to do all of that homework and speeches, I really missed the people I went to my classes with. I kept in touch for about 2 years then we just stopped talking.