1. This project was definitely a harder process than I had initially thought it would be. The beginning of the process was mainly about understanding what your task was. For me, this did not come easy. I didn’t understand the project at all, but slowly, as more and more days went by, I started to understand what I was suppose to do. My role in the group was to be a part of the corporation and to research how the globalization of the company affected culture. By researching more into my topic, I started to understand the prompt even more and began to realize what I had to do. In the end, I think that the product reflected the hard work put into simply understanding the project. In the group, I think I started out working more individually but farther into the process, I began working more with the group. I got a lot of help from Mary because it seemed like she really knew what she was suppose to do so she tried to help other people.  I also received a lot of help from Anya, who I thought took a leading role in the group. I tried to help some of the other people in the group if they asked me questions that I knew how to answer and I did my best to support others if they were nervous to present because I know that I was very nervous too. On the PowerPoint, I contributed by making two slides about my topic.  I worked on these slides in school as well as at home for a while if I did not have enough time to work on it in school. On the powerpoint, I completed slides 9 and 10. I think that all of the hard-work, research and help from peers really payed off in the end. The final product of the powerpoint got at what our group was trying to get at, and hopefully was easy for the other groups to understand.

2. The third essential question above is, “Globalization is here; how do we, as global citizens, deal with it?” To answer this question, I used the short story: “The Reluctant Fundamentalist”. In the story, the main character, a Pakistani man named Changez is telling his story about his work and love life to an American man. Changez had completed Princeton University and joined Underwood Sampson after moving to America. Globalization is reflected through this story because this company picked him, a Pakistani, over many other Americans to work there because he was the best fit for the job regardless of his differing background. This can lead to cultures mixing, while more and more foreign workers are being hired for jobs because they are the best at what they do. Also, Changez is trying to fit into American society, which is one of the main reasons that he has moved there and began a career there. This reflects how a lot of people act in the real world. People move to other places to become a part of other cultures and societies, which in turn helps cultures mesh together. I think that the author was trying to show this globalization through just one story of the life of Changez, coming from Pakistan, and moving and living in a completely different place.

3. As I watched the other presentations, I found many things interesting and now have a greater understanding of globalization as a whole, including the upsides and downsides of globalization. The presentation from the group of the America’s was about Walmart. I learned in this presentation that when there are big companies like Walmart, people tend to become dependent on them, and some smaller businesses suffer as a result. Therefor, the way to deal with this is to create a balance between buying from small and large retailers. This makes a lot of sense when I think about it, but I would never have thought about how globalization and big companies can make this type of impact if it wasn’t for the Walmart presentation. Also, from the group in Asia doing Samsung, I discovered a completely different insight on the use of cellular devices and other pieces of technology like televisions. As Jack Rabinovich said, having cell phones can actually make culture in communities flourish because of the communication that people can have with each other when far away from each other. I also did culture, so this was something interesting to hear. The group that made the biggest impact on my understanding of globalization was sub-Saharan Africa doing De-beers. I learned that globalization brings many pressures from the outside world. People looking in from the outside makes these companies want to look better and be more appealing to consumers. Many companies have charities and make themselves more environmentally friendly for this reason. However, the globalization of companies always makes products in a higher demand, for the reason that there are more consumers, so this makes the company have to work even harder to take care of the demands. Katie Doran explained a lot of this information very nicely. The slide on the powerpoint that says the essential questions is slide 17, which is when Katie and other group members really impact my view on globalization.

4. I think that this project taught me a lot more about globalization, as well as some life skills. At first, I was in a very hard position because I felt like I didn’t understand what my task was and I felt like I was in a standstill. However, I kept pushing and digging deeper into my research and in the end, I finally understood. Through this process, I learned that what can really help you to understand something is to not give up and keep digging deeper. It also showed me that help from peers is okay to ask for, and usually is really beneficial. This project has prepared me in life as a global citizen. I now can look at large companies and understand more about the globalization behind these companies. I think that having an understanding for what globalization really is and how it can have a positive and negative affect on certain aspects of life like culture, social welfare, environment and labor is an important part of being a global citizen.