Week 2

 Creative strengths

    a) Reflect on your dominant creative type and how the skills and characteristics of your creative type will help you excel in your chosen design field.

My dominant creative type is the regenerator. I have an analytical mind and see setbacks as opportunities for reinvention. Resilience and adaptability are some of my strengths. This creative type will help me in interior design because there are inherently setbacks and problems that need to be solved in order to fulfil a design brief. When I come across these issues, I won’t be hung up on the fact that things don’t work, I will be able to envision new ideas and possibilities.

    b) Consider how your creative type might change or adapt as you progress in your career.

As I progress in my career and interior design, I believe that my creative strengths will become less analytical and structured, and become more creative and free flowing. Design, in its essence, is an extremely creative field, which is something I am not super experienced with though I am eager to learn.

High5 personal skills

    a) Reflect on how these strengths can influence your academic journey and career.

Having the strength of a time keeper will be very helpful in my academic journey and career because inevitably in education and work, there are many deadlines and timelines that need to be followed. As this already comes naturally to me, it will be a very useful skill. The deliverer is a useful strength because it shows that my priorities are centred around following through on commitments. In work, especially as an interior designer, it will be very important that I am able to fulfil any tasks that I take on. Being an analyst means that I can take large amounts of data and make sense of it. In academics you deal with a large amount of new information which will be energising for me to handle. I am also a focus expert which will be helpful for me to finish assessments and projects when I am working. As an empathiser I will be able to understand and predict how others feel. This will be useful in interior design because making sure the people are happy with the designs is the most important.

    b) Consider how they align with tasks or roles in which you currently excel or those where you feel challenged.

Working analytically, on a deadline, and keeping focused are all areas that I naturally excel in, and this is in line with my strengths. I feel challenged particularly in group situations where you rely on others to complete their part of the task. I think this is because I have a strict idea of how to focus and when things need to be done, but I can’t always assume others think along the same lines.

Decision making style

    a) Consider which style resonates with you the most.

I resonate most with the analytical decision-making style. I am very methodical and detail oriented, and I like to make decisions with a full base of information.

    b) Reflect on how your decision-making approach influences your study habits or career planning.

My study habits are influenced with this decision-making style by always being thorough and methodical about studying and assessments. However, it can mean that I become stressed when something deviates from my set plan. In career planning it helps me set specific goals, though it can be overwhelming with the idea of entering into a new field with no prior experience in it.

Emotional Intelligence

    a) Reflect on how these skills appear in your studies, friendships or career.

I have high emotional intelligence, and these skills help me to further improve my relationships both with people and with my work. I consider myself a very empathetic person and I am in tune with others emotions. This allows me to maintain long lasting relationships with others and will be useful in my career as an interior designer because there is a level of relatability needed with clients.

    b) Are there opportunities to enhance and fine-tune your EI for long-term success?

There will be opportunities to further improve my emotional intelligence throughout my career. I am hoping to, at some point, work with accessibility and interior design. This is where my emotional intelligence will come in handy. But that will also be able to grow, as there will be a lot of issues that people are facing that I will try to help improve.

Week 1

 This week back was my first week back to study after a break of several years. There was a lot of information in my three units so far and while it has been a overwhelming, I am prepared to try my best.

Knowledge Gained - this week I learned a lot about both the university in general and my course specifically. The scavenger hunt was a particularly useful exercise because it helped me find where a lot of helpful tools will be for my university journey. There is an area of the student hub that helps you to look at your degree through the years and help plan your studies. I think this will be very useful to me. In terms of my advanced bachelor of interior design, the two other units that I am enrolled in were very design specific obviously, and I learned a lot of new terms to do with sketching and drawing interior and exteriors.

Challenges - I have faced several challenges already in my first week of study. In my other units I felt kind of like a fish out of water, I have little to no artistic experience and it feels like a lot of my peers in the units on some level have already been practiced at drawing. I also have a very different learning style to my lecturer, who is more of a go with the flow type of person, and I prefer a lot of structure and specific instructions of what to do. This will be a learning experience for me to practice other ways of learning new information. I am also learning to juggle my time. As well as full-time study I am hand raising a kitten that I’ve had from two weeks old. He requires bottle feeding every 4 to 6 hours which means that my sleep schedule is regularly interrupted.

Successes & Strengths - I have recognised my ability to not become too overwhelmed when I have a lot on my plate. Time management is something that I am usually good at and I am not a big procrastinator. I was also able to not become too stressed or catastrophise too much, which I can tend to do when I feel like something might be too hard for me.

Application - I can apply what I have learned by utilising all of the resources that the university has to help me with my studies. I already have a LSOA which I can use to accommodate any difficulties that I come across. I also intend to try out several digital drawing programs that the course coordinators have recommended to me, so I know for the future what is best for me to draw on.

Areas for Improvement - I would like to further develop my knowledge of basic drawing and sketching terminology and skills. I would also like to get ahead in the reading for some of my units as this will help me feel more prepared during my lectures.

Goals - my goals for the coming week would be to read ahead in the assigned textbooks and other readings for my units so that I am better prepared for the week. I would also like to experiment using the different platforms for digital drawing.