The opportunity I had to study Spanish abroad in Guanajuato, Mexico I believe will help me in the future. I can now communicate conversationally with an entirely different demographic of people. I personally believe that in the world of business, understanding multiple different groups of people, the way they live, and the way that they interact with others is something that all professionals should understand. Understanding other cultures helps to understand more people. This is vital when trying to do business with people in other countries, connecting and creating professional relationships. When studying other cultures, it gives you insight into how groups of people other than yourself connect and create relationships between each other.

I believe that having the ability to connect with other people and learn about others whether that be in the workplace, through a study abroad program, in an immersion program, or on your own will benefit you because it will help you create more interpersonal and genuine relationships that will give you a better diverse network of working professionals to connect with.

The best way to network is to talk to people. Get to know them, what they do, and how they got to where they are. It is surprising in the connections that I have made to learn everyone’s path to their current position. The ability to hold a conversation with a person face to face is one that is necessary to creating connections with people. The easiest way I have found to do this is to practice. Small talk is always hard and can seem unnecessary and boring, but when you are talking with a person, if you can genuinely listen and get to know them and remember something about them, it will serve you well if you need to use that network in the future.

Holding a conversation with someone is more than just speaking with them. Eye contact and engagement is another important part of networking. If you lack the ability to hold eye contact with a person or many people when speaking, it disengages you and automatically it is harder to create a connection with another person. Acting engaged while speaking, asking follow-up questions, as well as carrying a conversation is also important. These traits allow for the other person to truly understand and know that you are interested in connecting with them.

Lastly, asking questions is the best way to genuinely connect with a person. Asking questions is one of the best ways to connect with others because it shows that you are trying to get to know more about them. I believe that when you are trying to connect with others it is imperative to come with a list of questions or to always have some questions in the back of your mind. Creating questions and other things that can be used as talking points is also another way to ease the path to forming connections to help you in the future.

If the instruments and the songs did not directly teach me some form of emotional intelligence, then the teamwork aspect of many of the music groups I participated in did. I learned how to listen to the music, and how to express the emotion of the song through body language, speech, lyrics, and general expression. Emotional intelligence is the ability to be aware of one’s emotions and to be able to handle them in an appropriate manner.

The piano taught me how to express myself through my body language and way that I played the notes on the piano. It taught me to find the high and low points of a piece of music, and to tell a story without words. This helped me become more emotionally intelligent because I learned what expression was like and how to express my emotions without saying them.

Playing in band helped me to learn to work together as a team. This was the first time that musically I had to work in a team. I learned to play and blend and match the people around me even if we were not similar in personality (trust me, we were not). Playing trombone, I was the only girl, so I learned a lot about how to handle myself around a group of middle school boys. This helped me to learn how to develop relationships with people that were different than I was/am. It taught me leadership and how to be a good respected leader.

Choir taught me the most emotional intelligence. Listening to the words, analyzing the lyrics and the meaning behind each song taught me how to express myself through words. This was a similar experience to playing the piano, except I learned to express emotions through my face and the way I emoted to the audience. I also learned through acting in the school plays that even though I was just a chorus member, that everyone is equally as important and the story cannot be told unless everyone is working together to express the story to the audience with a shared goal.

All these experiences have given me tools for when I finish college and am entering the workplace. Being able to navigate personalities and understand where people are coming from is a vital tool that will allow me to better understand my co-workers and the way that they work with other. It also helps with communication. Emotional intelligence is vital for all people to understand how to better communicate with each other and it helps build a more successful business.