Design Thesis Research || Self Asessment
CONTEXTUALIZING EXPERIENCE
What was the most successful project you ever tackled (in or outside of school), and what made you successful?
There are two projects which I’d say were my most successful and I believe that the common thread between the two that lead to my success were my overwhelming passion and dedication for the subject matter. One project was a brand launch wherein I designed a tampon brand that served that catered to the needs of younger girls first learning to deal with their periods, emphasizing the necessity of education and preparedness in facing periods. The second project involved UI/UX design for a hair care application that allowed girls with multicultural hair to socialize with others like them and learn to take care of the hair they may have damaged from years of attempting to have less “ethnic” hair. Both of these projects tapped into my strong sense of passion for issues related to social justice, cultural identity, and feminism. There are many factors that played into my success in this project, but above all was my dedication to the subject matter and my resulting motivation to do a copious amount of research and the devotion of a large amount of my time to perfecting its functionality. I was motivated by the desire to help my intended audience and as such, was able to create a product that I was sure would be useful and necessary.
What was the most critical team role you ever fulfilled, and why?
I typically serve the role of a leader in many team projects, but I believe above all, even when I’m not serving as the leader, serving as a successful mediator is the most critical role I’ve ever performed. While often times the mediator for discussion ends up being the leader, there are many time when they’re simply just the person who is able to guide the trajectory of discussion in a group and synthesize their ideas in a meaningful and progressive way. While I’m sometimes willing to take the role as leader when others aren’t willing to take the initiative, I’m often not incredibly outspoken and willing to guide if I’m not provoked to do so. Even so, it’s important to me that in discussion and planning, that I am able to help the flow of the team’s brainstorming to guide them in a direction that will improve the overall vision of the project. This involves making sure everyone is heard, helping others to expand upon their initial thoughts, and organizing the team’s ideas in a way that makes sense and can serve as a jumping off point.
When faced with an overwhelming obstacle, what’s your “go-to” skill to overcome it?
My most useful skill in facing overwhelming obstacles is my ability to contextualize them and break them down into their bare essentials. I think the most intimidating part of massive obstacle is often the abstractness of concepts and the inability to understand what the outcome is or what I’m even aiming for as a designer. One of my most useful skills in this case is my ability to contextualize the problem as in my ability to take the time understand where the problem is coming from, what needs to be done to complete it, and organizing those tasks into steps that I can complete in my own time in a way that won’t overwhelm me.
What are the strengths that others acknowledge in me?
I think a skill that others may appreciate from me is my ability to question and expand upon initial ideas. I flourish the most during discussions, and many have said that my feedback is incredibly useful in helping them expand their original vision and discover new ways of approaching things. I’ve also been told that my time management skills in the context of group projects are useful, as its a habit of mine to break things down into small steps with soft deadlines to be completed so that final products don’t seem so nebulous and overwhelming.
THEMATIC STRENGTHS
In recounting the above experiences, there seems to be a definitive theme behind which of my own skills most clearly contribute to my successes. As an individual, my strong values and passion for social justice issues drive my dedication to the projects I take on, while as a designer and team member, my strong collaborative abilities and penchant for meaningful and productive discussion aid me to create creative and comprehensive solutions with the help of large groups of people.
My passion and values are a strength and and of themselves, and it is clearly that I am highly motivated by my desire to help and improve the lives of others. When projects I take on fall into these categories, I am especially motivated to create something that is useful and necessary and as such, I take much more time and effort to create something that is complete.
This strong sense of empathy for others extends in to my ability to be a useful collaborator, as my desire to bring out the best in others and help them learn, grow, and improve drives my ability to productively guide discussions and direct group projects. One of my greatest strengths is the ability to organize and guide my teams and ensure that they are all on the right track to complete their given task and learn from them. As a leader, it is important to me that everyone understands clearly what they need to do and are given the tools they need to successfully do them. My dedication to helping my team members overcome their struggles and properly communicate with them is one of my best strengths as a leader.
In confronting my most challenging obstacles, by ability to simplify complex concepts is perhaps my greatest strength. Making simple the abstract allows me to tackle difficult problem spaces and make them more understandable for me as a designer as well as for others.
My top five strengths would be the following:
Mediating Discussion
Empathy
Simplifying Complex Subjects
Time Management Skills
Leadership
WEAKNESSES
What are the weaknesses that you aware of?
One on my most glaring weaknesses is my lack of personal initiative. When I am working in groups, I am so motivated by the desire to help my other teammates be successful, but when working alone, I lack the same kind of care for my own success and self improvement. I have a lot of goals and desires, but I rarely act on them unless faced with extreme pressure. If the motivation isn’t strong or dire enough to complete a task, I often struggle to complete it. This can manifest in the form of me not being able to complete an individual assignment until the last second, or even my inability to contribute my own thoughts to a large or go out and network.
My timidness only serves to exacerbate these issues. My fear of rejection and seeming stupid often prevent me from going out of my comfort zone and taking the necessary steps to improve myself as a design and expand my professional network. Though I’ve improved a lot on this since starting college, I still struggle in going out of my to put myself in new environments, find new opportunities and meet new people. In addition to this, I also lack confidence in my own skills. While I’m able to understand that I have strengths as a designer, I often struggle in having confidence in my own abilities.
When working on a team, what roles do you avoid that may be important to your goals?
To be very specific, in teams where we are tackling UI/UX design, I have avoided prototyping interactive solutions, I’m simply not interested in UI/UX design. There have also been many times when I’ve tried to avoid any research tasks that would require me to dive into uncomfortable and new situations or meet new people, whether that be going out to contact experts or complete research samples of communities that I am not familiar with.
When faced with an overwhelming obstacle, what’s most likely to cause you to become frustrated or give up?
I struggle when put under the pressure of short time restrictions or projects that are moving too quickly. I tend to be a perfectionist, and as such, I struggle when I’m not able to complete and perfect my projects at every step. When I’m not able to have this time, I can become frustrated and unwilling to continue.
What was the least successful project you have ever tackled, and what tripped you up?
My personal logo animation was incredibly unsuccessful and still needs to be redone. My biggest struggle with this project goes back to my issue of personal motivation and initiative. It was a project that was made for myself (even though I knew it was necessary for my career), and as such, I didn’t see why I needn’t to complete it with urgency. I never developed the proper motivation for it, so I never made anything very good.
What are three weaknesses that you want to use your thesis project to overcome because they may hinder your ability to achieve your professional and life goals?
Personal initiative
Networking skills
Quick Iterative Skills
I think most urgent to my success as a designer is my personal initiative. If I’m unable to complete tasks for the sake of my own improvement, I will fail to improve and succeed as a designer. In addition to this, I need to learn to improve my networking skills and my ability to meet new people, as well as improve my abilities to iterate quickly for the sake of fast moving design projects.
How will you use your thesis project and future planning to mitigate, manage, and overcome your listed weaknesses?
I’m still entirely unsure of how I want to approach my thesis, but it is clear this is a great opportunity for me to learn how to motivate myself and take the initiative to complete a project that is for the benefit of my own career in the future. I’ve shown in past projects that I am able to collaborate, so I believe for this project it will be necessary for me to work alone and complete this project entirely for my own sake.
As one of the parameters for this project is to contact a professional in the specialty that we are focussing on, I believe this will be the perfect area in which I can improve upon my networking skills. In regards to my iterative design abilities, it will be important for me to iterate as much as possible paying as little attention as possible to the completeness and perfection of every stage and rather on the bigger picture.
What skills are you missing that you have not yet had the opportunity to practice? What weaknesses would you like, or need, to turn into strengths?
In small group environments, I tend to be successful in initiating conversations and guiding meaningful discussion, so overcoming my fears of failure and my lack of confidence would allow me to turn my poor networking skills into a strength, allowing me to demonstrate my exemplary discussion skills on a larger scale.