BA 352

Professionalism

With the conclusion of this BA 352 course, I gave myself a total of 38 out of 50 points. Professionalism for this course was difficult for me to adhere to because of my prior commitment to being a student-athlete. Having to wake up at 5:30 am for 6 am weights, go to class, show up to practice, then meet with my team at night made it difficult for me to stay on task and complete the points for professionalism. I did try to do it to the best of my ability and I justified my self-grade in punctuality, participation, respect for others, preparation, initiative and motivation accordingly.

For punctuality, I gave myself a 9. Though I did get to class right on time, it was difficult to be early because I would have to go straight to class from morning weights. I did show up to every single class and every group meeting, but I had to take a point off for punctuality because I did show up a minute late a couple times. For each of my appointments, with Career Services and the writing tutor, I showed up five minutes early. Being early to appointments is essential for jobs because showing up early not only demonstrates that you care, but it also demonstrates that you are ready, prepared, and motivated to take on any task that a boss or client throws at you. Without having a prior commitment to athletics, I would have been much earlier to the class times instead of pushing the time limit.

My participation in the classroom was very mediocre and I did not participate in class discussions. Because of this, I had to give myself a 5 which stated that I did participate, but not consistently. When there were classroom activities, I did add as much value as I could. For example, with the design thinking exercise where we had to create a backpack, I was fully engaged. I put as much effort as I could to thinking creatively, which is something I knew I needed to exercise more. My value for this was not just added based on how much I contributed, but from how much I grasped from it. This was also the same in all the other class exercises we had. By fully engaging myself in each activity, I was able to learn how to apply myself in various areas. This shows me adding value to the classroom because by contributing to the best of my ability, I was able to help others become more absorbed in the activities as well. Without being involved in these activities, the progress of learning between my peers, group members, and me wouldn’t have been as great. I do wish that I participated more in an entire classroom discussion by asking questions because there were many times that I wish things would have been clarified. There is no way for me to justify this and I know that something of this behavior would not be acceptable in the working world. Jobs are required to have full participation from employees to improve the business. By being more involved in classroom discussions, I could have gained more insight on the project proposal for it to be more successful.

My respect for others was high at the beginning of the term, but faded dramatically towards the end. Therefore, I had to give myself an 8. Treating others with respect was always one of my biggest morals growing up. This translated easily into the course and I proved it by always being attentive when there were guest speakers or when my peers were talking. It was easy for me to respect others even when I didn’t get the most positive feedback. For example, when I went into my writing tutor appointment for my memo, the tutor tore a part my entire memo because it was completely off base with what the assignment was about. I was very frustrated with myself for this, but didn’t show it. Instead I listened to her to see how I can improve my assignment most effectively to see how I can gain the most out of it. I also gave my teammates meaningful feedback in many different areas. One of this would be during our meetings. When I didn’t necessarily agree with something, I made sure I spoke up about it. This was one of the most challenging areas for me because I’m used to just nodding my head and staying quiet. I did improve in this area towards the end so I scored myself accordingly. Although I did improve on this towards the end, I also lost focus on the tasks at hand. In one of my evaluations, one of my team members mentioned that I could’ve challenged the process more by being more focused and productive at the end. This was difficult for me to do because our season just started and our practice schedule became rigorous. Attending meetings after a long session made it difficult for me to contribute efficiently. I know that when I do get employed, it wouldn’t be occurring during season and I would be able to stay focused throughout the tasks.

Prior to coming to class and meetings, I was fully prepared. With this, I gave myself a 10. I made sure to read the suggested articles to see how I could facilitate the group meetings. I submitted my assignments and brought all the important supplies needed for class and for meetings that I can use to further enhance my learning. I always wrote things down and knew that everything I would need was posted on Ron’s website. Because my group was fully prepared for every class, holding others accountable wasn’t difficult to do. Preparation is vital to succeed in the working world. Without preparing, one wouldn’t be able to start tasks off proficiently and could be very detrimental to the business.

Because being a student-athlete is so time consuming, it was difficult for me to take initiative of using every single opportunity provided to me. Therefore, I gave myself a 7. There wasn’t really a time where I could come in to talk to Career Services because of my practice times, but I did make sure to ask my peers what they learned from their additional research. Although I did not do outside research provided by the program, I did do research about our project by interviewing numerous people. The willingness to take a risk was there when it came to research, but it was more difficult for me to follow up on when it came to proposing new ideas within my group. It did improve at the end, though.

I think that the points I proposed are justifiable. Even with my busy schedule and prior requirements, I tried the best I could to work around it. Without having these prior requirements, I think I could have achieved a much higher score in professionalism.

§63 · March 18, 2014 · Blog Post · (No comments) ·

Personal Leadership Development

My Leadership Development Plan composed in the beginning of the year was consisted of my need for improvement in two aspects: challenging the process and self-awareness. These two complemented each other because my self-awareness made me self-conscious about my ideas and level of intelligence, which prevented me from challenging the process. It is difficult for me to make my ideas more unique because I am too worried about what others will think of it. The pressure of this prevents me from coming up with a solution quicker because I am too focused on the outcome. Some actions I took to improve on this was to give input on ideas that I didn’t believe was good. Although I did improve on this throughout the term, it is still there. Even with my input and opinions, I was still unable to voice my new ideas. Most of this pertained to my group quickly hashing out ideas at a pace that was way too fast for me to keep up with. I did not prepare as much as I could have for group meetings. This made it my efforts to improve on my LDP much more challenging.

In my LDP process, I talked about ways in which I can improve on my problem areas. One of this included not just sitting back and nodding my head, but refuting ideas that I didn’t completely agree with. It did allow me to step out of my comfort zone a little bit, but it also made me very frustrated at times. At times, I would say that I wouldn’t necessarily agree with something and contribute my own ideas, but they would get shot down. Instead of persevering and trying harder to generate something consensual, I gave up. For example, when we were developing the original third phase to our solution, I didn’t feel too happy about this because I thought it was irrelevant and didn’t make the phases of our solution flow well. A team member dismissed my opinion and thought this was necessary, but later we decided to reword phase 3 as a whole. I originally wrote this phase, but abandoned it because I did not know the logistics of it like my team member did. Instead of working on this, I got frustrated and gave up, failing in challenging the process completely.

With all this being said, I still need to improve drastically on challenging the process. I need to focus less on what others think of me and more on the process of how I can improve the task all together. During this course, I did improve on this, but did not accomplish succeeding in it completely. I need to not underestimate my own abilities and believe in myself because I am capable of doing more than I believe I can. I just need to continue what I was doing and not give up on it.

Throughout this course, I learned a lot about leadership that was not mentioned in the articles and models. One thing I learned in particular was that leadership is not only about stepping up and taking initiative, but also about stepping back and seeing the bigger picture. This was seen in a couple of my group members. These members started off being very persistent in getting their voices out there, which prohibited the rest of the team to talk. Throughout the term, they began to step back and enabled others to act by not saying anything. By observing what goes on, it was easier to see the faults and what we could improve on. This benefited the entire group completely.

Ultimately, I can still improve greatly on challenging the process. I do too much of this sitting back and need to do more of stepping up. I understand that there is still a long way to go, but I know I will get there eventually.

§42 · March 16, 2014 · Uncategorized · (No comments) · Tags: ,

Last Group Meeting

Tonight was the night that I’ve been waiting for: the last group meeting of BA 352. This night was highly anticipated for a couple reasons. The first reason was that it is the last group meeting before the final project we’ve been pulling each others hairs out for. The second being no more long nights stuck in Lillis until 11 pm and cold walks home afterwards.

I arrived in the Warsaw Suite, where we usually meet, excited that we were almost finished with the project we were so close to being finished with. I came into this meeting thinking it wouldn’t last longer than a couple hours. I was wrong. I didn’t realize how unprepared we were for the final presentation as a whole. With this being said, there were many things that we needed to work on. As mentioned in the previous posts, one of the areas I need to work on improving greatly is in my presenting skills. We had a trial run for our presentation and when it came to my part, I immediately froze. At first, I thought this was due to me being nervous about talking, but it was actually about the content. After listening to my other group members speak about their part beforehand, I realized mine was different and didn’t really flow with the others. However, it was a little more difficult to connect parts when a couple of my other group members had trouble with their parts too.

We had to step back again and rewrite our parts in order for them to complement each other better. This process was difficult because we had to simplify our very detailed solutions. With the help of one of my team members Ronnie, we were guided into finding a way to making our parts much more efficient. The last three and a half hours spent together were well spent and we maximized the time to our full potential, even if it went much longer than we all anticipated it to be. I’ve learned from this process, and through our many other group meetings, that it is important to be more prepared ahead of the meeting times. This will not only benefit me in other group meetings for other classes in the LCB, but also in the working world.

§38 · March 16, 2014 · Blog Post · (No comments) · Tags: ,

One Step Further

After presenting semi-successfully presenting our Situation Analysis, I knew that there was still a lot to work to do for the final production. Luckily, I was provided with an opportunity to work on my public speaking skills.

On the morning of February 28th, I was chosen to speak to Thurston High School about the inclusion of diversity and how to help prevent the active racism still seen in most places today. During this diversity discussion, eight of us were brought up to introduce ourselves, which wouldn’t seem so bad if it wasn’t in an auditorium filled with hundreds of kids. Oh, and there was a microphone to accentuate any awkward stuttering. However, even with my heart rate fluctuating, I was able to pass this first stage.

The high school students were divided into smaller discussion groups of 12-15 where each of us were assigned to lead. It was a good way to develop my communication skills because I had to connect with them. I had to “present” my ideas of what I thought the issues of racism are and the steps they can take to help prevent the issue around them. My goal was to create an engaging environment for them. In order to do this, I tried hard to not look off my sheet of notes because historically, I’ve had difficulties coming up with things on the spot. I tried to instill passion into my notes to make it much easier to carry out my ideas. This worked very well because at the end, my group was the most successful with goals (as voted by staff). I presented the ideas successfully back to the group of students and teachers.

This taught me that for my presentation this coming Wednesday, I must find a way to be passionate about the topic we’re doing. This will facilitate the presentation much further and I would freeze up less. I am looking at this diversity discussion as a training exercise for improving my presentation skills and I am excited to see how it will turn out Wednesday.

§36 · March 4, 2014 · Uncategorized · (No comments) · Tags: ,

Writer’s Block

Throughout high school, I was always taught to write in full detail. Using adjectives were encouraged by teachers and preferred by students to fulfill the length requirements of a paper. However, this doesn’t seem to be the case in business writing. I thought this was only the case in memo writing, but I found out it is applicable to every aspect.

I’ve never been a great writer. I’ve never even thought I would have to write again after taking my writing 121 and 122 classes. Evidently, while drafting our business proposal for class, my poor writing skills stuck out like a sore thumb. This affected me challenging the process because I was too self-conscious to try to contribute in writing the proposal because I didn’t want to seem uneducated or unintelligent. Fortunately, with the pushing back of the due date for the final draft, there is still enough time to improve myself.

Because I am completely aware of this, I know there must be a call for action within myself. I understand that by being stagnant in my writing process, I will never learn how I can improve myself. This definitely will not be the last time I will have to write something. For future jobs, I will have to sound as if there is some intelligence in me to attract any employer. Not only will this help my group successfully draw out our proposal, it will benefit me and my future.

§32 · February 25, 2014 · Uncategorized · (No comments) ·

Situation Analysis Presentation

Public speaking is one of my greatest fears, behind spiders and heights. It all started out with my banquet speech during my freshman year of college. This was the speech that turned the tables around for me. For the entirety of my presentation, I laughed. I was forced to sit down after and nothing was the same.

For the Situational Analysis presentation, two to three people had to present. Only two to three people? Sweet, that means I don’t have to present. Wrong. Professor Bramhall announced in class that presenters must be those who included presentation skills and challenging the process underneath their Leadership Development Plan. Unfortunately, I listed both of these. Thinking about having to present gave me anxiety. My palms were instantly sweaty and my heart was beating fast. As dramatic as it sounds, all I could think about was my failed banquet speech where I just laughed the entire time. I needed to do whatever it took to prevent this from happening again.

I practiced endlessly in front of my mirror, visualizing my classmates behind me. This was the difference between my failed speech and my presentation. For the banquet, I put zero effort into practicing, thinking I could wing it. I learned the hard way. Come presentation time, my legs were shaking. What made it worse was that we were the final group to present. We had to make an impression. Luckily, my hours of practicing facilitated the presentation. It ran smoothly, and I just remembered to keep calm. I definitely could have looked at my flashcards less, but the fact that I didn’t laugh at all made it much more impressive.

By practicing and being more prepared, I conquered my fear of public speaking. Challenging the process and going up really made a difference and my freshman year banquet will no longer haunt me.

 

§30 · February 8, 2014 · Blog Post · (No comments) · Tags: , ,

Career Babysitters

LCB undergraduate students do not have the right resources they need to get a career post-graduation. This is what I have falsely believed before guest speaker Jessica Best came in our Monday lecture.

Jessica provided an abundance of information that I had not even imagined the program provided. This displayed my lack of challenging the process due to discouraging myself in getting out of my comfort zone to step into the real world to find a career. What stopped me from making this transition into a different realm was my insufficient knowledge of the types of services that are actually handed to us. I was too comfortable with the high school mentality of having someone babysit me into making the right decisions.

I’ve learned that there are two ways for finding information about getting a career. One way is through primary sources such as informational interviews, guest speakers, and career paths. Another way is through secondary sources such as the career services library, which provided basic information of jobs. Job digest e-mails are also tailored to business students through filtration from career services, something else I was also unaware of. Not only was her coming in beneficial for me, but it helped me realize how I still wasn’t challenging the process. In this instance, I wasn’t challenging the process for paving a pathway to success.

Now that I have grasped a better idea of how to take the right steps into merging into the bigger world, I am aware that I must step out of my comfort zone. At this age in my life, I shouldn’t rely on someone telling me to use the career services, because they are there for my own benefit, not to hold my hand. Getting out of my comfort zone will broaden my knowledge and allow me to have an advantage over those who aren’t challenging the process.

 

§28 · February 1, 2014 · Blog Post · (No comments) · Tags: , , ,

Full Off of Feedback

Earlier this week, my coach presented me with the opportunity of heading up to the Nike Golf Headquarters with her to get an exclusive preview of the Spring 2015 clothing line where I was able to provide insight on what I thought worked well and what I thought could be improved. For someone who needs to improve on the “self-awareness” part of emotional intelligence, giving my feedback to great apparel designers for a world-renowned brand frightened me as much as stepping on a pregnant spider and having little spider babies engulf me at once. Oh, and yes, I do have arachnophobia.

I sat awkwardly in silence for the first twenty minutes of the presentation, shaking my head when they asked if I had any opinions. How am I supposed to tell these professionals how to do their job? It didn’t register to me was that this was them executing their job. They needed to receive feedback from consumers like me to see what needed to be done to be the best possible innovator for the clothing line possible. This didn’t hit me until I saw a piece of clothing I knew nobody in the right mind would wear outside, inspiring me to provide my input.

By telling them how I thought they could improve their product, it opened up my creativity level by enhancing my opinions on how I think each item of clothing could be expanded. I realized that I shouldn’t have been focused on worrying about their opinions on my own thoughts, but that my focus should be directed toward how my opinions could improve their projects. This was the main reason for me being there. I learned that keeping myself shut off will only show my selfishness, rather than me being sheltered. In order to assist others, I must provide my input, whether it is negative or positive.

This experience was eye-opening to me because it allowed me to see how I need to interact with others by voicing my own ideas, rather than worry about what others would think. This will be good for my future because if I want to pursue a future in marketing, I need to learn how to take initiative in establishing new ideas.

§25 · January 25, 2014 · Blog Post · (No comments) · Tags: ,

Beyond the Backpack

For someone who isn’t a morning person, 8 am is not the time I would expect to see trays of crafting materials on a table next to me. I thought, “Hm… maybe these were placed here from a group using the room last night.” Wrong. During class 2A, we were provided with a packet titled, “An Introduction to Design Thinking”. This required us to partner up with a random student in the class and design something useful and meaningful to our partners that will aid in transporting items to school. The assignment seemed completely uninteresting and boring to me at first because don’t people just use backpacks? What more can there be beyond that?

My partner was Tanner. While interviewing Tanner, I had to gain insight on what he would want in his transporting method to class. I asked him questions such as what he liked or didn’t like in his backpack, what his schedule was like, and what he preferred. These surface questions were not nearly substantial enough for me to develop a new product for Tanner’s needs. Professor Bromhall prompted us to go under a more creative approach by asking what were the other person’s interests and daily life. By going out of the standard and “challenging the process”, I was able to learn about his traits, allowing me to create something that fit his needs perfectly.

Using the art supplies on the table I saw next to me, we were to build a 3D version of our product. This is where I failed. Instead of going out of my comfort to create something cool, I tried too hard to be perfect and basically just formed a piece of paper with strings, which was nothing like I had anticipated to make. On the other hand, Tanner’s backpack for me was unique and aesthetically pleasing, something I would actually wear right away if it was made bigger. He had no trouble with experimenting and challenging his abilities, where I didn’t even bother doing so in fear of failing the task and consequently doing so.

Doing this assignment again, I would have focused more on the process rather than the outcome. By thinking of something completely weird and out of the ordinary, I could have used all the supplies differently to make something other than a piece of paper with strings that I called a backpack. This relates a lot to my issue of challenging the process because I try to hard to have a perfect result, rather than experimenting and looking for something out of my ordinary process, though by failing, I am learning from the experience.

§15 · January 18, 2014 · Blog Post · (No comments) · Tags: ,

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