Strengths
What was the most successful project I have ever tackled? When looking back at all the projects I have done, I think that my most successful project was creating a motion piece for my final in Motion II. This project was a success to me because I worked with a great creative and hard working team member. We communicated well and ended up designing an amazing piece. We divided up the work equally and offered each other lots of great input to both create a cohesive design.
What was the most critical team role I ever fulfilled, and why? In all of the team projects I have been a part of, we never officially assigned each person a role. We always seemed to discuss everything as a group and then divide the work evenly. However, more than once it seemed as though certain roles would just come naturally to each member of the team. To be honest, I feel like multiple times in team projects, my team members would say that I make a great leader for the group. I think this is because I would keep up to date with everyone’s progress in the group and make sure that they were on task with finishing when they said they would. Kept everyone accountable. I also would schedule group meetings to talk and go over where we were in the project. This way we could go over any confusion or conflict that would arise.
When faced with an overwhelming obstacle, what’s your “go-to” skill to overcome it? When faced with an overwhelming obstacle I seem to try to dive in and figure it out. Weather that be doing additional research, looking at inspiration, talking to other design thinkers for their opinion or reworking it a bit. If it becomes too much I find it best to step away from the problem for a bit, clear my head, and then try again.
What are the strengths that others acknowledge in me? As mentioned earlier, I think a strength that others have said they acknowledge in me is leadership. I do not fully know if I see that in myself as in new situations I am usually quiet and don’t fully want to stand out. Other strengths that have been acknowledged by others are a strong work ethic, communication skills, and time management.
Themes?
What strengths and skills came up over and over again? When thinking about what strengths and skills I have or have come up in peer recommendations, I think what keeps coming up over and over again is my work ethic. This includes leadership, collaboration, communication, time management, and problem solving skills. I care about the project and the team I am working with.
Which skills do you enjoy using as often as possible, regardless of the task? I enjoy using my motion design skills as often as possible but often find myself not having time to work on those skills. However, I have enjoyed playing around in motion software and bringing designs to life. A soft skill I enjoy using as often as possible is trying to keep a happy attitude and bring the happiness to the people around me. When everyone has a great attitude and tries to make each other smile it makes your time feel more enjoyable.
What skills have you mastered but would rather not use every day? To be honest I don’t think I have mastered any skill at this moment in my life and believe that your skills can always be improved upon.
What strengths and skills do you believe will be most helpful after you graduate and begin your career search? What I think will be most helpful will be my communication, collaboration, and time management skills. When it comes to my skills with design, I believe the most helpful will be my research skills and design software skills.
What skills are you missing? What skills would you like to build but have not yet had the opportunity to practice? Skills that I am missing or would like to build would be my speaking skills and my motion design skills. I often feel very nervous when speaking in front of people, especially if I barely know the people I am talking to. Even if I practice what I am going to say my nerves and mind always get the best of me. I have always felt that I might have some form of anxiety and if I could learn to not feel nervous when speaking and stop overthinking almost everything, I might not get as stressed out as I do. I have taken motion design classes, I just feel I need to practice my skills in it more and take more classes.
Top Five Strengths
- Communication
- Time management
- Good listener
- Responsible
- Open minded
Weaknesses
What are the weaknesses that you are aware of? A weakness that I am aware of is that I tend to overthink things. This in turn stresses me out. I also do not like speaking in front of an audience. Also I have learned to realize that even though I have great time management skills when working with a group, I feel like I tend to slightly procrastinate when working by myself.
When working on a team, what roles do you avoid that may be important to your goals? What I find interesting is when working on a team I tend to try and avoid the role of leader as I do not really like all the responsibility that comes with being a leader or the idea of telling people what to do. I would way rather it be a group process and decision. However I seem to always take on some of the tasks of the leader as talked about earlier. I do not know for sure yet if a leader role will be important in my future goals but if needed I think I may be able to do it even though I tend to avoid it.
When faced with an overwhelming obstacle, what’s most likely to cause you to become frustrated or give up? What causes me to get frustrated is when team members don’t do what they say they are going to do causing the rest of the team to pick up the slack. This makes me super frustrated but the only time it has ever caused me to give up is when they tell me they have not done their part close to the due date. I try to pick up the pieces as best I can but if there is not enough time I just have to accept what we have while being frustrated. I also often get frustrated because I overthink things.
What was the least successful project you have ever tackled, and what tripped you up? I think one of my least successful projects was the very first group project I did in Interactive Media I. In my opinion, it was unsuccessful because it was a group project between 2 separate classes with groups made up of a combination of both classes. This made it difficult to get together to work on the project and the 2 members of my group from the other class did not communicate well. This left confusion on the overall direction of the project and forced some to step up to complete the work of the team members that were not participating. Overall, I thought the idea was good but the overall execution felt not as successful.
What are three weaknesses that you want to use your thesis project to overcome because they may hinder your ability to achieve your professional and life goals?
- Overthinking
- Perfectionist (things don’t always have to be perfect, try to get it close but don’t overthink it as that might cause it to look worse)
- Group speaking
How will you use your thesis project and future planning to mitigate, manage, and overcome your listed weaknesses? My thesis project and future work will be used to help me plan and research things I do not know and would like to learn more about. This in turn will help me feel more confident in my design work. It will help me turn my weaknesses into strengths, hopefully. It will help me develop my research and design skills to create something I am hopefully proud of to help further me in my career.
What skills are you missing that you have not yet had the opportunity to practice? What weaknesses would you like, or need, to turn into strengths? I still have to improve my motion design skills if I hope to go into motion design. I am taking a 3D motion class now to learn Cinema 4D and hope to take motion III next semester while also working on my thesis. I hope to improve those skills and fill in any missing gaps or skills over the next year. Like before I hope that I can eventually turn all my weaknesses into strengths but some might take longer to turn into strengths than others. If anything I hope to turn my weakness of overthinking and sometimes being a perfectionist into a strength.