Written Final Exam
By working on the 10+1 step process in this class I did in fact learn and improve my communication abilities which transferred over to other parts of my life.
When I conducted the final step of the 10+1 process for the Unique Innovative Capabilities assignment, I saw just how powerful felt experiences were. When I reflected on the assignment, I saw that my felt experience was extremely influenced by Jessica’s first felt experience. Jessica wrote about an experience she had on vacation and as a result that invoked my memories of vacationing with my family. My final felt experience ended up being a unique experience I had on vacation because Jessica’s experience evoked those memories. Being able to connect a felt experience to something proved to be powerful because even after a month I can still remember the assignment and both of our experiences because I could connect my past experiences with both her experiences and the assignment.
After seeing how powerful a felt experience can be, I tried to incorporate what I’ve been learning into other classes. In the remaining days of advanced financial management, I had to conduct a group presentation. For this presentation I made a concise effort to have the presentation connect to both me and my audience. For example, I had to discuss the background of Sun Microsystems and I mentioned their forays into software development included the creation of Java. The background by itself is a pretty dull subject, so I added that Java was one of my favorite programming languages. Telling a class of finance majors that you have a favorite programming language can be quite funny to those who don’t know that I am also a computer science major so that fact got a few laughs. Getting those students to experience the emotion of humor would be able to get the background of Sun Microsystems to stick in their mind more and pay more attention to the presentation.
When I began giving the background on the Oracle Corporation, I also tried to connect this part of the presentation with the students. To achieve this, I mentioned how Oracle was known for acquiring and transforming tech companies. To drive home this fact, I mentioned one of the companies that they acquired, PeopleSoft. This drove home the point as I also mentioned that everyone in the classroom has had interactions with PeopleSoft as it is their software that run’s URI’s ecampus. By connecting the presentation with everyone’s shared experience of ecampus, I am sure that that part of the presentation stuck in their minds.
By incorporation the knowledge learned in this course I felt that this was the best presentation I made this semester as I was able to see the class be far more engaged than in any of my other presentations. By learning about the connectivity of people in integrated networking structures and complex adaptive systems I saw the importance of engaging with others. I was able to apply this to the job interviews I went to this semester.
In previous interviews I would often say that I had no questions or I would have a couple of question that would get answer early on and if I have 4 hours of interviews then after the first couple of interviews, I would say that the previous interviewers answered those questions. After learning about the interconnectedness of people and the important of forming personal connections in this class, I discovered the importance of asking questions to interviewers regarding their opinions and experiences to form that bond.
In one of my final interviews I decided to try and form that important bond by learning about the interviewer’s personal experiences. In this interview I would make up questions based on the interviewer’s opinions, and the interview to try and connect with them as opposed to asking general questions about the company and benefits. For example, one interviewer asked me how much it would cost to wash all of the windows in Rhode Island so at the end of the interview when they asked if I had any questions, I asked how he would have answered that question. After asking the interviewers questions like this to form a personal connection and attach felt experiences in their mind, I received a call within 24 hours informing me I would be receiving a job offer from them.
What I ended up learning in this course was the importance of connecting with others in a network and the importance of emotions and felt experiences when trying to get my point across. These revelations I experience in this class ended up transferring over to other parts of my life where I was able to see measurable improvement in my communication abilities.