IDENTITY, VALUES and STRENGTHS EXPLORATION

Core Personal Values

Explain a situation where you have had an ethical decision to make. Discuss how you weighed up the values involved in that decision, the decision you made and the consequences of the action you took.

Family is a big part of my life and something I value highly. I’m lucky enough for my dad to be coaching my Open Men’s Basketball team winning a couple of championships and a few runner up places throughout the years. Recently we had lost in the Semi-Finals having won every game up until that point. Some of my teammates didn’t like how the roster rotation was handled that game by the coach and have come together to ask me, as the captain, to look for another coach for the next season. I had a long thought process about this and had to consider all sides. On one side, it was fair to say that the rotation was one of the factors that cost us the game. On the other side, the coach has lead us into championships before so he’s more than capable of leading us into another one in the future. The decision I made in the end, was to keep my dad as the coach and had to give the select players an ultimatum. I didn’t want to get caught up in the drama by letting go of one of the things I’m proud of in life so I took a step back. Basketball is a big part of my relationship with my father and family always comes first.

Describe how your culture has influenced your values and identity.

Filipinos are very passionate and religious people. I’ve been brought up to always be hospitable and kind to others. This has shaped me into the open and welcoming person that I am today. My family always loves a good laugh and truly believe that “laughter is the best medicine”. We often watch comedy movies and I always find myself binging comedy stand-ups on YouTube. I guess you could say that’s where I get my craft from. Most importantly, I’ve been taught to always put God first in all things and do things out of love which I do now in the best of my capabilities.

Strength and Limitations

Evaluate your strengths and limitations in terms of your learning and career development.

In terms of my learning and career development, one of my biggest strengths that I believe would help me succeed is the will to carry on and never giving up. This goes hand-in-hand with another strength, which is the passion for the things I love. I won’t simply choose to pursue and persevere if my heart isn’t in it. One more important strength is my soft skills; what I really look forward to, studying at the academy, is how to translate that into the workforce as a programmer.

One limitation, I admit, that has the potential to hinder my learning journey is my millennial knack for getting distracted by social media and leaving things late which I believe I’m currently improving on by the help of routine and time-boxing.

Identify which of your strengths might help you in your learning journey and how they might intersect with learning obstacles.

The will to never give up will undoubtedly be a huge aid to my learning journey. In the future, I will be facing roadblocks so big that I would be questioning my decisions. Without this strength, I might choose not to see this through and turn my back on the obstacle.

Share an example from your experience of where you were trying to work productively with others, but there was resistance or tension. Discuss the strategies you used at that time, how effective they were, and your reflections on what other strategies you would try now, and why.

I once worked with a client in my previous role. The IT Manager had abruptly walked into the office with negative accusations regarding data spanning one year involving inaccurate invoices. The person responsible had left the company a few months prior so I had to take it upon myself to analyse and communicate my findings to the client. Despite the client’s frustration towards the situation, I kept my composure and tried my best to understand it from their perspective. Calmly, I asked for 24 hours to investigate before they come back and hear out my findings on behalf of the company. In my analysis, I found that one handover from previous employees caused the confusion on the client’s end. I presented my findings to our company before doing so for the client to voice out any reservations from our end for good measure. In the end, I made sure that the data was corrected retrospectively and would be so moving forward as well. Not only was the client happy with the work and professionalism I displayed but our company had given me a bonus for being analytical and representing the company values. There were many more benefits out of this but the lesson learned here is the important combination of technical skills and soft skills in the workforce.