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Student name: Jun Liang
Student
ID number: 11287331
Word count: 1717
1
st
October, 2011
Personal Reflective Journal
As I begin to write this, it is raining
outside. As grey as the clouds are now, so were
my apprehension about this assignment
when it was first handed to me. I am trying
my best to pen down my thoughts about
this personal reflective journal. It seems as
though time has taken a pause as I try
to fit my whole life experience into the given
word limit.
The
lessons in first three weeks of the course I had
were truly informative, educative
and
best
of
all,
impressive.
The
experience
was
better
than
what
a
textbook
could
offer
and
it
was
a
real
reflective
learning
process
for
me
as
I
used
to
think
I
knew
myself very much but
honestly I did not. Topics that were introduced to
me were both
personal
skills
-
developing
self-awareness
and
managing
press,
and
interpersonal
skills
-
communicating
supportively,
gaining
personal
power
and
building
relationships and
so forth. The most principal tool was pedagogical
approach as stated
in
the
model
view,
which
comprehensively
led
me
to
apply
its
five
steps
to
reflect
myself.
Week One
Looking
back
to
the
first
week
of
the
course
reminds
me
of
the
confusion
in
my
undergraduate studies. As
a graduate at the subject of automation which is
related to
computer
science
and
engineering,
I
was
expected
to
be
an
engineer
in
my
future
career perspective.
However, I came to realise that I did not like
this at all afterwards
though I could
perform well in this field. I thought there was no
bright future for me
to be an engineer,
along with the ideas from other people that only
managers could be
successful
as
they
could
make
more
money
than
engineer.
After
gathering
a
lot
of
information
about
my
career
future,
I
made
up
my
mind
to
find
a
job
completely
irrelevant
to
engineering,
and
fortunately
I
got
a
chance
to
work
as
an
intern
at
a
consultancy
company.
Surprisingly,
after
three
months
internship,
I
completely
changed my previous view to be a
manager because I found myself lost and could not
position
myself
well.
Later
I
become
more
and
more
confused
about
my
career
as
what
I
experienced
are
completely
different
from
what
I
thought
before.
I
always
questioned myself -
- go abroad. And that was primarily the
reason why I came to Ireland for my master
one month ago.
Even
now,
the
confusion
often
comes
up
to
my
mind,
and
I
still
feel
lost
again.
It
seems
that
all
I
did
was
just
trying
to
escape
from
reality.
After
learning
the
first
session on developing
self-awareness, I return to what I thought before.
I do have a
different
perspective.
I think
I was
experiencing a
learning process
which helps
me
know much clearly the
looked into the book - developing
management skills which I was learning, it came up
with the term - personal values which I
had never thought about my own. According
to Lopper (2007), a value is a
principle or quality intrinsically valuable or
desirable to
a persona. They are
personal and they are our convictions, our
beliefs, and our ethics
rolled
into
one.
I
ask
myself
inside
what
is
my
value,
what
kind
of
jobs
make
me
happy and what kind of
person I am. I used to do well in engineering
projects and was
praised by my
teachers, and I do like to communicate with people
and want to be a
team
leader.
I
think
the
reason
that
I
was
lost
could
be
mostly
attributed
to
be
my
easily influenced by the
external
factors. Returning to
the lessons,
I realise that
my
cognitive
style
is
like
a
combination
of
knowing
style
and
creative
style.
I
like
to
gather
lots of information and engage in brainstorming.
But I also like to focus on the
underlying
logic
of
the
information.
Now
things
become
more
clearly
in
my
mind.
What
I
need
to
do
is
to
go
through
and
to
deal
with
the
challenge
I
am
facing.
Learning project management is an
effective way for me to combine my engineering