I believe that my top strength is my ability to lead people. My Highest Virtue Class was listed as "Lover of Humanity" which is typified by compassion and befriending others. My top EQ Competency was "Inspirational Leader" which implies that I can guide and motivate people. I think these elements combined illustrate my strength is organizing and supporting people behind a clear vision. I think that these two elements of my assessment compliment each other.
I work best when provided a clear structure of rules and guidelines. My assessment reflected my logical and analytical approach to problem solving. I rely on breaking projects down into small sections with achievable goals. When working with a team, it is important to me that each person knows what parts they are responsible for and when they need to be completed. Open and consistent communication is vital to my mental organization when working with others, and when working alone I need a detailed record of what work has been completed and what tasks remain.
My greatest area that needs improvement is my organization and dedication. A lack of organization has caused me to fall behind on previous projects, by repeating work that had already been completed or missing tasks that were still undone. I also think that I have a habit of becoming discouraged and losing interest in projects when I run into roadblocks or a problem I'm not sure how to tackle. These skills will need to be improved before I can succeed as a software developer.
I hope that my strengths as a compassionate person with an analytical mindset and an aptitude for leadership will allow me to be a valuable part of a team. My goal in life is to be of value to others, regardless of the environment. In a career, this means that I want my work as well as my personality and viewpoint to be something that improves the lives of the people I work with. I hope to contribute to a team by being logical planner, a friendly coworker and a person that people can rely on.
Knowing that I have various strengths and working preferences can help me figure out what paths to follow in my career. It can also help me leverage my strengths into success by informing the way I approach projects and problems. Knowing that I have a strength in leadership, may encourage me to apply for positions or take on roles that I would not have previously. Knowing that my strongest driver is "Standout" may encourage me to monitor my behavior so as not to do things to gain attention, if those things may distract from something more important. Being aware of my weaknesses allows me to know what areas I need to develop, and can help me avoid positions where my strengths will not align with the role.
What efforts do you make to manage your learning process? Are these efforts successful? What challenges have inhibited your ability to manage your learning process effectively?
I have to put quite a lot of effort into managing my learning process. If I find a subject interesting I tend to overwhelm myself with information in a short amount of time, which can prevent me from truly learning the material. My tendancy to want to continue to move on to the next process or bit of information can leave me with only a passing familiarity with a lot of subjects and it has frustrated my efforts to learn in the past. The best strategy I have found to combat this bad habit is to not only set goals for what point I need to reach by any given point, but to also set a limit for how far I will progress on a subject before stopping. If I reach the point I need to be at, and I find myself pushing past that information to grab just a little bit more, it is usually a good sign that I should go back and review the material to make sure I truly understand it. Procrastination can also hold me back, so by scheduling properly and stopping when I say I will, I can tackle two issues with one method.
In the piece by Ta-Nehisi Coates he talks about the feeling of hopelessness that comes with the overwhelming task of learning something new. Most of time, people procrastinate because they are anxious about this feeling or the idea of failure. In Kathy Sierra's speech she covered the idea of moving directly from not knowing how to do something to being able to do it with little use of mental resources. I think that feeling of hopelessness, coupled with the expectation that we will be able to jump right to fluency creates a perfect storm of discouragement when trying to learn something very difficult. My process for learning is to try and structure my efforts around exposure and repetition. The pattern recognition that Sierra talked about (where our brains are building patterns unconciously) can only work if you give yourself many opportunities to see examples of high quality content, so that your brain can help you make the jump from cluelessness to fluency. Lastly, Coates talks about the emotional highs that can come with a moment of feeling like your getting better or stronger in a skill. I think it is so important to stop working and celebrate those successes, so that you have a moment to train your brain to savor those moments and to strive to repeat the experience.
What role does your emotional state of mind play in your learning? How do your successes and failures at learning affect your emotional state?
My emotional state plays various roles in my learning process. If I am emotionally distracted, I am wasting mental energy which will stop me from learning well. I am very motivated by the feeling I get when I solve a puzzle or a plan that I have created plays out successfully. Discouragement definitely affects my learning, but I would say that when I can't solve a problem or a piece of information refuses to stick, I tend to double down on overcoming the issue. This can be a positive, like when it helps me get past an issue, but it can also slow me down if I can't make myself move on to something else until I one particular thing to work. As I have gotten older I have tried to be much more forgiving of myself than I was in the past, which has helped me keep a more positive attitude. I am not a competitive person by nature, so I have to motivate myself based on my own perception of my progress.
Kathy Sierra talked about how all of our mental energy comes from one reservior. Part of my strategy for success at Turing will be to make sure that as much of that reservior as possible is available to be used for learning and mastering the material. This will require honest communication with the people in my life about what physical and emotional availability I will have for the forseeable future. It will require me to follow a strict schedule, so that I am not wasting energy deciding what I should be doing. I'm the kind of person who always has a ton of different creative projects happening at once, and I have worked jobs with unstable work schedules for most of my life. The lifestyle that I will have to adapt to at Turing will be different than anything I have ever done before, and though I know it will be difficult I am dedicated to doing well.