Hudson's December Week 1 Reflection
Reflect on your current projects and responsibilities. Are you surprised or satisfied with your contributions so far? Where do you see improvement since the beginning of the term?
I’m pretty satisfied with how I’ve consistently maintained commitment to my projects throughout every day of my shift, seeing that I have maintained the energy in me to keep working on my tasks. I’m surprised how I’ve been able to maintain this for 3 months at my placement as, whether its making phone calls to finding event venues, I’m still maintaining good focus when working at my tasks. What I think I still need to improve on is my attention to detail since, although I’m meticulous with getting the tiny details right, I tend to glance over certain issues with my works, whether it’s a small typo or a major info mis-entry.
When thinking of the work that you do, the people you work with, and the outcomes of your projects, what aspect brings you the most fulfillment? Are there any other aspects not mentioned that you want to highlight?
I think seeing all of the steps & elements of my projects being compiled into one final completion is the most fulfilling moment I get. My projects range from taking 1-2 days to something that’s going to last for my entire co-op placement (a nationwide volunteering campaign), but each require a series of steps to complete that each challenge specific skills I have. Hence, seeing a completed result after a series of challenges feels like I’ve reached a final destination as I get to reflect on the effort I put into my projects, which is a satisfying feeling!
Collaboration is a huge motivational factor in the workplace. Out of the people you’ve worked with at U+, choose a minimum of 3 people to show appreciation to and explain your choice.
First, I’d like to appreciate Anita Ding for taking her time to make meetings with the business development team to outline & guide us throughout our projects. Furthermore, she always answers my questions concisely and she’s been a great help for me to complete my side of responsibilities for a project we’re working on. Second, I’d like to appreciate Sarah Yeung for similar reasons, but by also having a friendly demeanor that makes me feel less intimidated to communicate with her and ask questions. She also provided me a lot of useful materials to do various tasks such as listing & cold calling storage units, which has made me learn a lot. Third and finally, Jessica Zou has been a great help for me whenever I worked in-person. Although I don’t collaborate with her for much projects, she’d always keep a friendly & soft-spoken tone while providing us small talk every now and then (which can be very helpful to ease my stress when I’m taking a break).
If you could mentor a new hire, what would you share as the most valuable advice?
The advice I’d share to a new hire is to always make it a priority to try new working styles & practices when dealing with new tasks. A mistake I made in the first month of my placement was that I stuck with a traditional way of doing my tasks. For instance, I’d stick with the status quo of using Google to search up storage unit info, which would take lengthy time as I’d have to continuously retype and scroll through the endless results that don’t provide me the info I need. That’s when I found a more effective way to address this task, which was to use Google Maps to not only provide me a list of storage units upon searching, but also to give me all the important addresses & phone details. Learning this, I’d always recommend a new hire to spend at least some of their time trying to find unconventional ways of completing their tasks as it could lead them to finding a new approach that makes task completion a lot faster!
