Reflective Paper

The exercise of examining someone else's CV, and then preparing questions based on that, made me realize the practical value of communicating well and knowing what I am communicating. By this I mean that I am at least vaguely aware of how the person receiving the information that I'm trying to communicate will interpret it. The exercise of looking through my CV after having written it and asking questions from the perspective of an employer is an exercise I am definitely going to keep in my back pocket because it is valuable in the following ways: it helps me prepare for the interview itself as I may be able to anticipate some of the questions that I might be asked and the questions that I did not anticipate are probably not that different in nature to the ones I did anticipate. Also it helps me gain insight as to how an employer tries to seek out those qualities in me that they require for their position. Knowing this will help me better convey those qualities.

Did I learn something that will affect and hopefully improve my performance in the future and if so in what area of life?

Personally I find it interesting that the SWOT analysis did not tell me anything I don't already know about myself (preference of thinking rather than doing, strong aversion to any sort of repetitive task to name a few). However since I don't do it on a regular basis it gives me a new perspective on the things I already "know". Up until now I had come to accept that I am the way I am and there is no need for me to develop laterally. However the analysis and my mentoring partner have shown me that remaining a purely theoretical person is to my detriment. My mentor pointed out the example of how I would refuse to prepare for tests on the basis that my analytical thinking and memory is so strong that I would still perform well. In some cases this was true, in other cases I was simply lucky, but for instance in the case of Information Systems test I fell flat on my face. Not because the material was difficult but because I was arrogant enough to not check whether I knew the material well.

Any sane person would ask why? Why, if you memorize and understand things easily don't you take the time to do so? Is it a discipline issue?

The answer is yes and no. No because when it's necessary I can work continuously for hours and have done so in the past. A most recent example of this would be the database we had to create and design for IT. It took me a day to digest the material and another 8 hours of work with my partner and an additional 4 hours on my own to finish the project. I slept a total of 13 hours that weekend because we had to do it on time otherwise we would get a zero as we were already a week late. Our teacher was impressed with the result. The only problem with this is that I was forced by circumstances and the consequences were grave enough