Reflection paper

11 December What I Learned While in COM 2206 there were a few different things that I learned that I thought were significant to my life. The three major topics that I thought were the most applicable were the lessons about self-concept, the HURIER model and the separate stages of Mark Knapp’s model of relationship development. These are all crucial to developing an increased confidence, learning to listen and communicate and then learn to create relationships by putting all of what I learned in COM 2206 to use in real life.
Learning about self-concept is absolutely crucial through communication and in all aspects of life. It is important for me to know who I am and to acknowledge my identity. It also helps me to determine my strengths and weaknesses. This was the most interesting yet most difficult lesson to let sink in. Though I know that self-concept is an essential part of life, it is hard to look at your own strengths and weaknesses. I know now what some of those are and the areas that are my weaknesses are those that I can work on and learn from. It is not as simple as looking at yourself in the mirror but more like looking at yourself under a microscope and sometimes what you see is difficult. That is also where I had several “ aha” moments. It sounds narcissistic to only acknowledge what I learned about myself but it is difficult to build on anything else in communication without acknowledging my own strengths and weaknesses in life.
The HURIER method was also a great thing to learn because it helped me learn more about listening. Sometimes I find myself busy and thinking about other things that I have to do that I sometimes may drift off and think about other things when I am in the middle of a conversation or even in class. I may be hearing someone else but I am not listening. This lesson helped me to realize I need to stop what I am doing and listen or the translation of what I hear can be completely different than the message I was supposed to be hearing. I know that I need to go through the steps of hearing, understanding, remembering, interpreting, evaluating and responding, hence the acronym. In any conversation or giving an answer in class, I have to actually hear and process the message in order to give an appropriate response to what it is I have heard. I think it is a tool that I use without thinking about it but actually seeing it in a logical organizational form makes it easier to remind myself that I need to really think things through before responding. The elements that make me a bad listener versus a good one are evident when I sit down and think about it.
When considering relationships, I thought it was interesting that through Mark Knapp’s theory, we must literally do things one step at a time. I really thought about first impressions during this first step and realized sometimes I do judge a book by its cover. I may miss getting to know someone really interesting if I do not look beyond appearance. It is unfortunate sometimes that physical appearance plays such a huge role but it made me realize that this is key sometimes in the future. For job interviews, I will have to definitely look the part or otherwise, I will not get past the initiation phase.
Though there have been many instrumental lessons learned in COM class, these are the three I got the most out of. I feel like they will all benefit me in the future. Examining them was crucial though I did not realize it until I had to and analyze how important communication is.