Halfway Reflection
1) Tenaciousness is a competency. What are the behaviors that you have used (or developed) to keep up with the requirements of this course?
In the beginning of the semester, I would sort of do the assignments as they came and not really worry so much about the severity of the assignment. After almost missing the deadline for an assignment in the second week, I began to read over next week’s assignments (before finishing the current one(s)) to make sure I will not have an uneventful surprise come the start of the week. Therefore, I would recommend keeping up with your assignments, because if you distribute the work somewhat evenly across at least 2-to-3 days within the week, you should feel rather comfortable completing each assignment on time.
2) Tenaciousness is also about attitude. Talk about a moment or two when you felt like "giving up." What pulled you through? Do you feel like you've developed a tenacious attitude during the past two months? What experience or experiences most contributed to this?
There were at least two times where I did feel giving up and not submitting an assignment. This past weekend (10/5), I had to choose between going out or staying home and finishing the two ENT assignments. On Thursday, one day before the typical deadlines, I had a big test for my business statistics course, and did not work on either of the two assignments due for ENT that night when I got home after the test (way too tired). Naturally, I waited too long to get started; at around 8:15 PM my friends texted me saying to be ready by 10:00 pm to go out, but I still had two assignments left to finish. In that moment, I had a spurt of determination and decided to not lose to either situation: not going out or not completing an assignment. For the next 100 minutes, I put myself into an absolute grind-it-out mindset where I kept telling myself that I would not let this assignment keep me from seeing my friends. Thus, sometimes increasing the stakes and giving yourself a goal with true rewards (even if it is short term) can naturally force you to become tenacious.
3) Three Tips. What are three tips you would offer next semester's student about (1) fostering the skills that support tenacity and (2) developing the 'tenacious mindset' ?
1) Stay organized: Try to get your interviews out of the way by at least Wednesday or Thursday to not have to worry so much on Friday. This way you can also have some cushion if one of your interviewees bails on you.
2) Read your comments: The people writing the comments are in the same situation you are, so take a second to comprehend what they wrote. Multiple times I have found inspiration from my peers that has helped me adjust my opportunity and read where I could have done something differently.
3) You will most likely get stuck by trying to be the next Zuckerberg when creating your idea, and that’s okay. You must understand this class focuses on crafting a mindset and investigative process for entrepreneurship, and thus you will not automatically understand how to do everything perfectly. Expect to have some roadblocks and stay away from overthinking!
^ Stay tenacious, you do not want miss out on these game days!
#LSWho?
10/06/2018
10/06/2018
You had a lot of constructive advice to share. I liked your advice for students to read the comments that that peers post. There is really a lot of beneficial information that a second perspective can provide. Sometimes you get caught up with a thought or idea and just having a second set of eyes taking another look can be extremely helpful.
ReplyDeleteDear Evan,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with all your points, I can see you put a lot of effort into this post and any kid who is thinking about taking this class would benefit greatly from your advice. I also missed a cupcake once and that really made me realize that this is a course you need to complete and try hard on ahead of time. I also do agree that reading your comments on your posts is a good way to benefit yourself and your product. Also cute pic - lsWHO???!
Hi Evan,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you wholeheartedly when you mention that reading the comments would be one of your suggestions to new students in this class. Reading my comments has given me new ideas in how to procedp with future assignments, as well as other useful information and insights from my peers. Commenting also really makes this class feel like a community, like an in person class as opposed to the purely online class that it is for the vast majority of the students in it. My experience with online classes in the past has been that they're only really tolerable with friends in them that you can spend time with in person to work on assignments together, and this remains true, but the comments add another dimension to that, making the class a more enjoyable experience overall.