As we continue writing reflections each weekend, I keep thinking that weeks are going by so fast. We’re already in mid-October, soon it’ll be thanksgiving break and winter break and just like that, our first semester of college will be over. After watching The Social Network that came out two weeks ago, I kept thinking what my goal or purpose in life is. As an undergraduate student at Harvard, Mark Zuckerberg created something in his dorm that’s worth billions of dollars today; and what am I doing? Just like all other typical college student I’m just trying to make it through each day without stressing too much.
This question that I’ve been pondering leads me to the subject of this week’s reflection.
Having never played the game of Risk before, I wasn’t sure what to expect last week. Knowing Professor Jackson, when he said that we were going to be play the game with a different approach than the standard version, however, I knew that it would incorporate IR theory aspects that would spice up the game. And, indeed, it did. Rather than aiming to gain the most land and power like the regular game (realism concept), each group was assigned specific goals that they had to achieve throughout the game. By having the diplomats of each team meet during the diplomatic phase and communicate with each other to decide whether they want to go to war or become allied, the groups were able to become more flexible in their relations to accomplish their goal (constructivist concept). One of the things that I found interesting throughout the game was how different team members often do one-on-one strategic plans to help benefit both groups. This allowed us to get a feel of how diplomacy works in the real world.
No comments:
Post a Comment