Personal Mission Project

Purpose: Many students wait until after college to consider how their courses will support them in accomplishing their goals. Regardless of what our personal goals may be, there is a good chance that interacting and relating to people of a different cultural background will be important (whether it is a cultural difference that crosses national boundaries or a co-cultural group in the same country). It is hoped that this assignment will encourage students to identify a clear goal, and then see how study of intercultural communications can help them in accomplishing that goal.

Assignment: You will do a three part paper that consists of the following sections (Please number each section):

1. Identify a goal: Consider a goal you have for after college that may involve intercultural communication. Some examples might include doing a mission to a cultural group other than your own (internationally, or to a co-cultural group here in the United States). You should explain the goal you have in the first part of the paper. As part of this explanation, please include what culture(s) with which you will be interacting in your goal pursuit.

2. Challenges and Opportunities: In the second part of the paper, I want you to identify and explain some of the challenges that must be overcome to prepare you to work toward that goal. For example, what are some things you will need to learn about the other culture to improve your chances of successfully relating and interacting with them in the future? Will you need to learn another language? Are there legal considerations? What are some things about the other culture that might pose particularly challenges to you? What are some elements of the other culture that might make it easier? This section should do more than address some of the challenges, however. I want you to also identify and consider some of the opportunities and elements that will be easier to overcome. In doing this section, please access the many opportunities at researching the other culture. If you have problems with this, please talk to me and I will try to help give suggestions for your particular research.

3. Plan: The third part of your paper should include your plan for overcoming the challenges and reaching the goal you establish. Ideally, the plan should begin with what you can do right now (courses you can take, extracurricular activities, spending of some of your free time, volunteer work, etc—whatever you could be learning, studying or working on right now that can help prepare and move you toward your goal).