With warmer weather comes freedom from the classroom walls that restrict our creativity and our time to sleep... unless you're one of the 600+ students from around the nation who chose to spend a grueling 4 days in Addison, Texas at a beautiful Marriot bothering all the other guests and breaking holes in the wall. Unfortuanetly the likelihood of knowing more than one person from your class means its time to either make friends or crawl back into your shell and just get your work done. If you choose to expand your horizons and possibly make a new friend from Texas or Kansas or Texarkana (????) there are thousands of ways to break the ice. I tried to meet 10 new people in 24 hours and for someone who basically hates everyone and doesnt even know everybody in my graduating class this ended up being a slight challenge and a huge inconvenience. On the first day of my senior year I expect nothing less than to walk into 4/7 classes at least and have to play two truths and a lie and talk about what I did this summer and what my interests are and I still won't know everyones name for a considerable amount of the year.
I found a variety of students at the workshop willing to talk about how they make friends or even if they like the make friends. The answers were overall wery similar.
Realizing first that at a journalism conference the students interested in journalism enough to travel to Texas are probably pretty committed to the craft. Knowing that it makes sense that most students were interested in meeting new people and are able to start a conversation relatively easily. I went out of my comfort zone to flag people down and interview them and it was a great experience for me. I love talking to people but often it is difficult to break the ice and start the conversation. The concensus was that if you're at The Gloria Shields All-American Publications Workshop most all students will be willing to talk to you and have a conversation. The hardest part is just having the courage to do it and that is a skill you will use for life.
For some fun ways to meet new people click here
For 600 icebreaking questions click here
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