UnEARTHing Iowa, College of Growth in Iowa

Megan McMahon

Today, we played a business simulation game administered by Dan Topf. The game was centered on the Food Industry and involved six groups of three to four students competing against each other. This created many challenges, working with new people, trying to understand market trends and understanding basic business terms. Though our group only had one business major, we were able to place third by communicating well and really taking into consideration everyone’s input. Some challenges we faced as a group were the initial fears of working with strangers and the possibility of failing. Though we had met and conversed a little the day before, the three of us had never had a chance to really get to know each other and how we all liked things to be done. Luckily, the pace of the game made it really easy to set those fears aside and focus on the task at hand. This idea connected a talk we heard previously in the day from Adam Carroll; he brought to light what most college students inherently know, that when you’re crunched for time the complications of the task melt away and all that’s left are the simple steps that must be completed to accomplish the task. Once these fears were set aside, we could see that by combining our backgrounds and listening to everyone’s input we could be successful.