Amna Chaudhary

My personal history plays a huge impact on me because it has made me who I am today. My life in the past has had many ups and downs with the biggest one immigrating to Canada which provided me with the freedom and independence I would not have been able to have due to lack of security in my native country. In my middle school, I adapted myself to the world of multiculturalism and diversity which was a new phenomenon to me as I was never exposed to so many ethnicities at once. This influenced me to be stronger and fearless in my skin. Continuing to high school provided me decision making powers as I was entering my early teen years where my powers were able to give me some authority. In high-school, located at Jane and Finch, I was exposed to everything bad whether it be smoking or drinking but it was the support of my guidance counsellor along with teachers behind my back to ensure I was focused on the right path towards excellence in academics. I pursued to York University was when my family decided to move to Mississauga and I transferred myself to University of Toronto Mississauga campus as it was closer to home then but little did I know what was about to come. I was entering my second year when I switched to UTM where I did not know anyone and had to start from scratch to make new friends, to get comfortable with the campus and basically starting my life all over again. This time it was not easy as everyone had their own groups and I was already overwhelmed with the course material and the new town, Mississauga. As you can probably imagine, I failed a course and went on probation but only to find myself at Sheridan where I was able to succeed once again and build my self confidence again. I could have faith in myself again that I can succeed and accomplish the degree I wished to pursue.

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My journey at Sheridan has been nothing but a pleasant one as the staff and students are always there to help and support. Just the recent bump was the strike, even with which the staff has been very accommodating. Personally, it is hard for me to start all over again after 5 weeks off, especially when I would be prepping for my exams at this time if the semester was going as planned without any interruption from strike. Also, being my last semester and watching it drag till January 12th is also coming in between my only brother’s wedding which was planned to be after my final exams so I could enjoy is really adding on to the stress as exams are after new years now. Therefore, my competency I have picked is agility and adaptability because if anything in my life does not go as planned, I find myself struggling to start again.

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In the first year of Sheridan College, my goals were to improve communication skills, curiosity and imagination skills, and critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Now, my focus is agility and adaptability because observing myself on a personal level, I believe this is one competency I really need myself to get familiar with. Being a part of Sheridan, every class has group projects which really helped me get used to the competencies known as communication skills and collaboration and leadership skills. Also, taking creativity courses in my years at Sheridan College, I was also able to expand my critical thinking/problem solving skills to another level. The evidence is an assignment from my Creativity class where I had to experience nature and talk about it as my class assignment in a way to let others feel it as well. To my surprise, I was able to write about my experience in a very elaborative manner and was able to communicate in an interactive manner. This exercise helped me improve my communication, curiosity and imagination skills, and even gave me time to reflect and solve problems.

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My personal battle was to pick from collaboration and leadership skills or agility and adaptability. Initially, I did pick collaboration and leadership for my get ugly project, but in the next week I switched over to agility and adaptability which I think is a better competency to get comfortable with for me. With all the personal issues I have experienced, it is agility and adaptability I need to really get ugly with. With this competency in mind, I was able to construct my Why statement;

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 “My why is to never let anyone give up because only after persistence comes achievement and success.”

 

It had been hard for me adapt to new environments or changes but I never gave up. In the past, my MBTI result showed that I have a very accepting and compassionate nature due to which many times I felt like I forced into making some decisions which I otherwise would not have made such as switching from York to UTM. After learning from several such incidents, I was able to learn and stand for myself to only achieve my set goals and be content with myself.

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                From CLP 1, my 9 values were personal growth, achievement, human rights, truth, commitment, safety, innovation, creativity, and stability. Reflecting back at them, I would still like to say that personal growth and achievement still remain my top two because of how important it is to me and assists me in constantly growing as an adaptive, successful, and a positive person. My third value will be now commitment because as I have grown, commitment is very important to me personally and professionally providing me stability which is also my fourth value and a must for achievement. The fifth value I will now focus is safety as it is very important to feel safe in your own skin and surroundings which leads to sixth and seventh value, creativity and innovation. One can only push themselves to only be creative when you feel safe and innovation only occurs when there is creativity present. Lastly, a value which binds all my values together is human rights which provides legal rights to be treated equally and fairly.

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Another self assessment I did in advanced CLP is the Grit test where my score was 3.50 which measures how well I can handle long term goals and not be demotivated by failures and set backs. I think the score really supports my Why statement and shows that I am working on my competency I have picked, agility and adaptability. Couple of years back, I probably would not have achieved this high score because I had not realised this about me back then that I continue to strive till I succeed. In CLP 1, I met myself on a sheet of paper which helped me understand myself and I became aware of my strong skill set and weaknesses and where I had room to improve. I understood that failures are part of life and only from those, you learn and grow. Before I would feel low for not succeeding but now I just get up and try again till I achieve my goal.  

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The information from both the tests makes me realise that I have grown from who I used to be two years ago. My focus is on becoming more agile and adaptable, my 9 values have rearranged in a different order, and my results from Grit score are not what it would have been before. I have grown to be more of a resilient person and focus on what just agrees with me. Therefore, the realisation of how I have grown is quite astonishing because I would have never been able to realise this is on my own. From here on, I am confident that as I graduate and take steps into the real world, I will be more adaptive of changes around me and be more agile towards them rather than letting them affect me like in my early academic years.