Capstone2.md

Gear Up

Empathy

Empathy has played a huge role in my life, specifically in my previous work. Throughout college, I worked in the field of mental health - specifically with kids with autism. Empathy was unbelievably important here because I needed to place myself in the shoes of the kids I was working with to efficiently help them and understand where they were coming from. I've also understood over time that empathy is important in any relationship, whether that be romantic, familial, or professional. There will always be a time when you disagree with someone that you are close with, and empathy is what allows us to reach common ground when that happens. If you do not have a compassionate perspective during times of disagreement, things could be said that you later regret. One specific example of how empathy builds better software is in UI/UX. Empathy is highly important here because you need to be able to place yourself into the shoes of another human and think about what they might like to see while interacting with your software. Having empathy while working in tech is extremely important simply because most developers tend to work on teams, and they are solving very difficult technical problems. In a situation like this, disagreements are very likely to come up and empathy will help alleviate some of that tension. A situation in which empathy helped me with a teammate was when I was in college working on my capstone group project. On the day that we were supposed to present our project, one of my teammates said she was not going to be able to present her part because her mother needed to go to the hospital the night before and she did not get any sleep. In this moment, we worked with her through empathy to find a solution, and we divided her part among all of the group members. I find it most difficult to empathize with teammates when I truly think I am right in a situation - if someone is avidly disagreeing with you, and you know that you've done the work and you feel as if you are correct, maintaining that empathy can often be difficult. In this scenario in the future, I think it is important that I remember that there's never just one answer to most things, and I am never 100% right - empathy will allow me to move past the idea of right/wrong and let us have a more emotional and compassionate discussion.