Do you still see yourself in the same light?
I still see myself in the same light in terms of values, goals, interests and character. However, I have expanded the way that I see myself when it comes to being an entrepreneur and a professional. During my initial evaluation I was describing myself through the lens of my past positions and employers, my education and degree aspirations, and my knowledge groups. I failed to realize that this type of approach was very limiting and really it was more of a sales pitch rather than a self description. You could say that I approached every matter outside of my personal life from the perspective of all business all the time. I came to understand that simply regurgitating my academic qualifications and past employment really did not give my description an individualized voice, rather it framed me as a standard business student with minimal personality. Due to this realization, if I were to describe myself now I would not focus as much on the aforementioned things, instead I would focus on the things that make me a unique individual.
Do you still intend on keeping the same path?
Yes. Simply put I am fully committed to getting into law school and to study at the school to get a law degree. Furthermore, during that journey I want to maintain part-time employment with my current employer, Arya Health. I have bought plenty of material to study for the LSAT, I have studied for it, and I have a good idea of what my plan will be to get into law school for 2023. If I continue to follow my plan I should be on track to achieve both of these goals.
Have you been successful in accomplishing any of the things that you stated that you wanted to do to improve your Entrepreneurial Awareness?
In my original plan I had mentioned two individual events that I wanted to attend. Whether it was due to personal things popping up or other factors I was unable to attend either of those two events. Nonetheless, I made up for this by getting the information by other means. Firstly, I got in touch with some branding and marketing leaders from other successful startups and I got some quite helpful information that I have implemented into my current role. The other event I was going to attend was related to SEO and analytics. To supplement missing this event I ended up viewing multiple pre-recorded seminars on these topics on the internet and I also did some additional research on top of that. Due to this I still believe that I improved my entrepreneurial awareness.
In my original plan I also indicated that I wanted to utilize more thinking hats than just the black hat; the hat which I focused on too much. I believe that doing group work every week significantly helped to achieve this goal. As we tackled the unique problems each week, I began to use the other thinking hats more as I heard the opinions of my colleagues. Due to this, by the end of the semester I found myself using all of the thinking hats and not just the black one. Thus, I still believe that I improved my entrepreneurial awareness due to this.
Tell me your journey in this course, where did you start; where do you find yourself today? What did you learn?
As I had mentioned in my first answer, in the beginning of the course I would describe myself as just the amalgamation of experience from school degrees and previous work experience. However, at this point in the course I believe that to describe myself like that would remove any personality that makes me unique, and it would be an understatement to say that those things are the only things that describe me. Moreover, since the beginning of the course, I found that I speak up more in my company meetings outside of my allocated portion, and I present a side of myself in the office that's not just strictly business all the time. I think my coworkers all appreciate it because it is easier for us to build relationships when there are more personal conversations and moments to discuss topics outside of work related matters. Lastly, I have never taken a class that involved this much group work, since usually group work in other courses would amount to one or maybe two group assignments for a whole semester. However, in this class group work and group interaction happened for the bulk of the semester with the same people. With this consistency, it was a unique experience to get to interact with the same folks weekly and to solve problems together. This gave me another perspective on group work at university so I will definitely consider group work oriented courses for my final semester.