Blog 8: the Survey

      Recently SM3 students are busy with their project. One of the main steps of doing the project is to carry out a survey. The purpose of the project of our group is to find out how individuals’ criteria of an ideal mate change as their life stages change. Compared to the groups whose project topics are concerned with university students, our group faces a difficulty where we need to conduct the survey among the undergraduate students, unmarried graduates, and the married people. The process of carrying out the survey was interesting.

       We started our survey on Wednesday and everything went on well. Our group of five lingered about the Arts’ Canteen at lunch time. Whenever we saw someone who had just finished the meal, one of us would go to the person and requested him or her to fill a questionnaire. It seemed that most people did not mind to spare a few minutes to do us a favor and almost no one rejected my requests. Moreover, we encountered senior SM3 students and they helped us to distribute the questionnaires to their fellows. At last, we got lots of filled questionnaires and were very optimistic about the progress.

       However, the next days, problems began to arouse. As our filled questionnaires are mostly from undergraduate students, we had to focus more on graduates and married people. At lunch time on Thursday I was assigned to involve the tutors in CELC who we thought would be married. The first two tutors I asked were so kind to help, while the latter ones, who were having lunch together in a room, chatting and laughing, took me for nothing. Not only did they refuse me hastily but one of them even blamed me for stumbling into the ‘forbidden area’ of CELC! It was not a pleasant experience then but looking back I thought it was kind of fun.

       On Friday, I was assigned 8 questionnaires for married ones. Again at lunch time, I lingered about the science canteen, searching for married individuals. Just like the day before, most were friendly and helpful, some refused me, and some showed a lack of politeness and respect. I found myself gradually adapted to different circumstances and immune to negative responses. To my pleasure, this time I was more productive than I had been the former days.

       From this experience I learned how to work as a team member and strengthened my communication skills. I also learned how to deal with negative responses. I was grateful to the people who contributed to our survey.