It feels amazing to do something on your own, especially when you end up exceeding your own expectations, the feeling is beyond just happiness, but let me tell you about another feeling- a feeling of winning together, and that is what l felt when my YYGS simulation team was voted first in our group.
To just give you a full picture of how a seemingly imperfect team got to glue-up, found an “invisible” common ground and got it to work – so l remember first logging in my first session of the simulation class, feeling a bit intimidated and out of place l tried to keep my cool in the best way possible (l smiled ridiculously). At this moment, an intense breeze of awkwardness swept over the zoom call and the instructor tried to contain the situation by randomly sending us into breakout rooms of 4. And that’s how l met my team, one was from Columbia, one from China, one from Venezuela and finally me from Zimbabwe and even though we were all total strangers, l felt free, like l could speak my mind without the fear of being judged.
Twelve days later we were presenting a project that we had all worked on for the entire YYGS period. “I just hope it goes as planned”, l mumbled a silent prayer, ambivalent feelings were oozing from every part of my body, but because of the support of my team l did it, we did it, we nailed the pitch and the glory of being number 1 in our group was just a mere reflection of the dedication we had pumped in. The best part of this project was not about the presentation itself, but about the journey, the arguably few moments we spent on independent zoom calls so that we could put pen to paper and scrap out an idea from our young minds, the different cultural views and backgrounds we had and the amicable struggle to pick the perfect discussion time due to varying time zones. Those moments were priceless for me because it was not only about the project but about a good friendship that sprouted between us when we were all busy colleting our thoughts.
YYGS was not just another summer program, l formed bonds with boys and girls from all over the world, people l would have never met if l had not attended YYGS. It gave me an opportunity to listen to concepts taught by some of the best Yale professors, to discuss ideas l never even thought could be discussed, to work collaboratively with others, to analyze poems through the eyes of a poet and to belong to a family.
Simulation class was just one piece of the whole cake, and it was not even the piece with the cherry on top!
Author Details:
Munya Murove
Literature, Philosophy & Culture
Zimbabwe