Costa Rica: Natalie Peters
Program: UW Team Building in Costa Rica, Summer
Natalie’s Majors: Kinesiology, Health Promotion and Health Equity
What is your most memorable experience from your program?
My most memorable experience from the program was completing a volleyball team building activity on the beach. We had just had a long day of travel, and after arriving at our new hotel we were able to go and play at the beach. Naturally, we started playing around with a volleyball which turned into creating a makeshift net which turned into a team building activity. The reason that I enjoyed this memory so much was that it was so spontaneous yet it embodied the values of the course. Everyone just naturally joined into the game until we decided to turn it into an activity, and we were all in support of this. One person had to get the ball over the net, then one by one we had to rally the ball over the net and then follow our pass to the other side so everyone started on one end and ended on the other. If we messed up no one was ever upset, rather, the group was able to quickly regroup and try again as we didn’t have time to waste putting each other down, we wanted to build each other up so that we could complete the activity. This course brought together people from different places, career paths and ages, but everyone had a common interest of bettering their team building skills. This was evident in every teambuilding activity we did, but it stood out to me the most during volleyball, and we had so much fun in the process.
This course brought together people from different places, career paths and ages, but everyone had a common interest of bettering their team building skills.
What is the moment you are most proud of?
I sometimes am scared of heights, so I was unsure how the zip lining was going to workout for me. When we got there I was excited but then there were rain delays which made me more hesitant. Everyone else was fairly confident which helped me stay positive and it was an insanely cool view. If I am scared of heights, it is because I end up psyching myself out once I see how high up I am. Because of the wonderful group I was with, there was no room to be nervous. If I mentioned anything about being anxious, everyone in my lift group immediately told me not to be scared and reminded me of what an amazing opportunity I had ahead. That was another cool aspect, we got to take something similar to a ski lift up to the top of the course and get our photograph taken in a concrete hand. I was proud of myself for not chickening out and really enjoying the moment. At the end of the experience, I had so much energy and excitement I could not stop smiling for the rest of the day and it was one of my favorite memories.
What challenges or barriers did you face as you prepared to go abroad and/or during your time abroad? How did you work through them?
I am someone who loves organization and knowing what is ahead of me. What was unique about this trip is that part of the process was learning to go with the flow and be able to deal with whatever is thrown at you on the spot. This particularly stressed me out as I was packing because I did not want to be underprepared, however, we were instructed to bring reasonable sized luggage and I did not want to overpack. I tried to pack for the activities I knew we were going to be doing, and then made some assumptions based on the weather since I knew the course would involve movement. I also like to know what I am doing in advance to mentally prepare. Some days this was harder to do than others because we were given more information ahead of time. The instructors also sent us a message the night before instructing us what to bring in our day pack so at the least we could be prepared for the next day. This also let me relax a bit as at least if I did not have a full idea of what we were doing, I knew I was at least prepared for whatever was ahead. I found that many other members of the group were like-minded in the sense that they enjoy a schedule. Being like-minded helped us persevere as we were all in the same boat, and had similar feelings so we could relate to one another. It was easier to face these barriers as a group as opposed to all alone.