This week, I had the opportunity to self reflect and dig into my interests and future goals. This article will highlight my current situation and personal feelings towards my career choices.

The first topic of discussion involved life outside of school and academia. This past December, I landed my first part-time job as a sales associate at a retail store. Initially, I thought I could not balance my school work load and a part time job. At first, I felt extremely overwhelmed and anxious with the sudden increase of responsibilities. When I first started, my family was supportive with my decision on taking on a part time job because I was on break and had time. Eventually, as second semester began, there was suddenly too much on my plate with the five-course work load I had. I was having some difficulties balancing assignments and the hours I had to put in for work. My family saw this pressure I was feeling and suggested that I only focus on school. I was not keen on quitting early, so I told myself that everything is a challenge in the beginning but will be easy to adjust to later. This was one decision I did not regret because as a student I am now manage my time efficiently. Being busy everyday of the week and now on weekends too, I am on limited on the time I have for everything I need to get done. Therefore, this has helped me to avoid procrastination as I feel more motivated to start early and potentially also finish before due dates. Additionally, having a part time job also allowed a change of environment to my daily repetitive routine life and has helped me build many connections.

After reflecting where I want to be after graduating, in terms of job readiness, I do not feel 100% ready to leave the academic life and step into the real world. This is mainly because I still have a lot of skills to build up on and I am not entirely sure of the specific position I am interested in starting with. My biggest fear would not be finding a job instantly after graduating. With the competitive market in the GTA especially, it has become difficult to land a job of interests right away for any student. I hope to overcome that fear and stand out to recruiters.

To become a project manager at Deloitte would be the ideal job for me. Deloitte is a company that is growing immensely for the last couple of years and continues to grow. I feel that it is a flexible but productive environment to work in which would be the best for my personality. After self reflecting, reading through employ-ability 101 on Acadiate, and researching real job descriptions, I have learnt that everything is a step by step process and starting early is key. The most important factor of finding a job is first discovering yourself. If I am unaware of my own strengths, weaknesses, and skills, how will I be able to confidently prove to an employer that I am worthy of the position in their company? How will I show my passion for their business if I am unaware of my interests in the first place? Through this process, I have learnt that self reflection is key and that I will only be able to grow as an individual once I have answered all questions about myself.