Student Reflection Example

After the third year of my undergraduate program at McMaster University (Computer Engineering & Society – Min. Business), I was fortunate in receiving an opportunity to work as a S.W.A.T. developer at IBM Canada. However, due to the pandemic, this job was shifted to an online, work from home role, but it was initially meant to be done at the IBM Laboratory in the city of Markham. Prior to starting my role, I actively reached out to (at the time) current interns, asking for more information regarding the role, and, through what they communicated to me, I researched and learned more about the technologies and skills necessary to excel at IBM. At the start, I was nervous, and it was a nerve-racking experience as I was thrown into what seemed to be a whole new “professional” world. However, as I delved deeper and adjusted to my role, I became extremely thankful and excited about all the new learning opportunities and knowledge that was available to me.

I learned a lot about project management, role setting, and time management as the role was extremely fast paced and required us to deliver on a variety of projects in a very short amount of time. As a result, one of the major new skills I learned was how to learn and apply knowledge in 2-week intervals, but, because of the massive amounts of work we were taking on, I also ran into the issue of burnout. This again was an amazing opportunity for me to learn the skill of saying “no.” Funnily enough, when reflecting on this, it seems like such a trivial concept; however, I cannot emphasize how important it is. Looking at prior knowledge that I had brought with me, in many instances, I had the chance to utilize a lot of the programming knowledge that I had previously learnt throughout my undergraduate career and exhibit my professional communication and networking skills, which I had built prior through running my club MacChangers. In my opinion, this was an awesome opportunity, and I would say it went exceptionally well. Next time round, I think I’ll be a lot more cognizant of my personal health and workloads, and I’ll make sure to accept more opportunities which allow me to further develop and grow.

After going through this experience, I wish to become more knowledgeable and develop expertise in more specific technologies. However, in doing so, I also wish to stay up to date with the latest emerging technologies that are associated with the exponentially fast-growing tech field. Also, I have made it a mandate for myself to continue excelling in all my future endeavours and always give my tasks my utmost best effort. In the future, if given a similar situation, I will develop deeper personal connections with my colleagues and try to better my communication with them as I have learned that this is the best way to overcome any obstacles that come my way. Along with that, I will always try to find love in what I do as I have found that this is the best way to excel at your work.