Reflection on COMM 351

Looking back at the work completed for my ePortfolio this semester, I feel confident that these updated samples help to illustrate to employers both a level of knowledge about interpersonal communication and an ability to apply that knowledge to meet specific goals. While I have found ways to channel the education I’ve received in other course into real-world projects and situations, it is an enormous benefit to have this public-facing record that can immediately display the practical use for my degree and how it can be used in meeting regular business needs.

As a technical writer, I feel a strong ethical responsibility to draft inclusive documentation that is not tailored to a single sub-group, but that instead speaks to the fullest possible audiences. My workplace includes doctors and staff members from a multitude of backgrounds, and it is essential that the medical knowledge I write up can effectively and efficiently be understood by them all. Having taken a number of different Communication courses at ODU, my view that effective communication can foster better outcomes remains the same after this course. However, I believe that continued exposure to theories and concepts in this course regarding interpersonal and organizational communication have empowered me to do more in promoting greater levels of that effective communication in my work environment.

The white paper on fostering greater conflict competency through enhanced training stuck out this semester for me for a few reasons. First, it allowed me an opportunity to research how to handle conflicts from an interpersonal communication perspective. While much of what we learned in this course helps us to head off conflicts before they begin, given that conflict is unavoidable in certain circumstances, I greatly appreciated learning about strategies to manage conflicts once they began. The second reason I found this white paper so compelling is because it maps directly to situations that I have actually found myself in, and I hope to use the recommendations I came up with the work through the real-life workplace issues I’ve experienced.

This personal investment also meant this assignment became the most difficult of the ePortfolio, since I was so invested in building out a plan that might actually be put into real-world use to address actual workplace conflicts. While it was difficult, I believe it would behoove all students to search out ways to directly tie their learning to events outside the academy; doing so allows for a much more immediate sense of connection to the material and offers a more concrete path from what is read about or discussed in class and the reality on the job. It is so gratifying to be able to draw on my understanding of how internal cohesion is strengthened through greater conflict competency when describing why a new training program should be considered.

This course has helped me to achieve a firmer perspective on how putting interpersonal communication concepts into practice yields to greater overall organizational communication. We depend on organizational communication to smoothly achieve shared goals, collaborate on long-term projects, and coordinate tasks across the entire company. But attaining this level of communication requires breaking things down at the level of individual interaction. Intercultural and conflict competencies are tools that enable workers to bridge communication gaps and come together to meet larger challenges as a team.

While COMM 351 marks my last Communication course at Old Dominion, I am adamant about continuing to invest in broadening my understanding of how interpersonal communication can be utilized to improve my day-to-day workplace interactions. When we acknowledge differences, we are then empowered to appreciate and utilize that diversity to reach deeper of understanding of one another, both as members of organizations, and as human beings.