Prior Perceptions
To integrate myself, I plan to take the route of the typical new member. I will show up at the meeting and express my interest to join and also mention my complete lack of experience in this area. I suspect that only half of their new members join like this though. The other half probably have been fencing for a while in high school and might know the people in the club through major fencing tournaments. Regardless, as a newbie in the club and in the field of fencing, I hope the group accepts me and 'shows me the ropes' instead of being annoyed by an unskilled person who tags along with the group.
I think to fully understand a group, one must experience said group without the spectre of being an outsider hanging over them the entire time. Thus, I plan to actually join the group and take the route of a new member instead of introducing myself as having a project and asking to observe them. By being in the inside, I hope I can gain an acute understand of this group, something that would be very difficult as a foreign observer. Honestly, I think the best time and way to bring up the project would just to say that I have to write a few reports over "groups" for a class and let them imagine the rest. They will probably assume it is for a sociology or psychology class and think nothing of it. The knowledge that I had this assignment for a while and that I specifically sought out and joined this club solely for this class would probably be harmful to my membership and friendship in this group. And truthfully, I wanted to join this club anyway. I took the opportunity to complete this assignment and get involved in something that seemed interesting to me and in all honestly, I probably would have joined this club even without this assignment.
As far as prior perceptions that I have with this group... I expect that it will mostly be males. They will probably all be in what most people would call "nerdy" majors. I expect a lot of the people in the club will have been doing this since before they came to A&M. As a result, I assume many will be from upper middle class backgrounds. I am not sure how they will treat new members. The possibility that they are critical and cold towards newer members is there, though they also might not be so elitist and instead welcome new blood with open arms. Of these two possibilities, I cannot know which to be true until I actually attend the meeting.
Initial Results
The initial interaction in the group was extremely satisfying. Not only did I have tons of fun, but I was able to gather a ton of good information. The first thing I noticed my initial expectations about the gender gap was not as wide as I originally envisioned. At the beginning of the meeting, there were about 12 people total, with 4 females. The atmosphere of the group seemed laid back, they were very happy to have new members so that was heartening. The first thing we did once everyone was ready, was warm up exercises. This activity kind of solidified my initial expectations about the kind of members present in this group; that is, everyone struggled with the exercises, basically: this was not a group of hardcore athletes. After the exercises, during the stretches, we all introduced ourselves so the new members (Trevor and me) could get to know everyone and we could introduce ourselves without being awkward. At this point, another assumption was proven true, most of these guys were in either engineering or scientific fields. Next we did footwork drills and since I was new and did not know how to do them, one of the members was nice enough to take me aside and go over them one on one. After these were complete, the rest of the members gathered their equipment and began sparring. The same member who went over the footwork drills with me, continued her kindness and took me to the armory and showed me where all of the equipment is and what items I needed. We got back to the practice room and several people helped me suit up and I was immediately thrust into a sparring lane. The dominate theory of learning in this group seemed to be trial by fire. Armed with a foil and almost no knowledge, I was put to the test against one of the experienced members. At first I was nervous and worried, but these feelings soon faded and I enjoyed myself. Like all good sports, the best way to learn is to do. You don't sit in a classroom or have someone explain how to catch a ball or make a free throw, you just go out there and do it. We spent the rest of the four hour meeting sparring with different members, getting tips and pointers, and generally having fun.
Overall, I felt really welcomed into the group and I expect this to be a very good group to complete my ethography on.
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