Explain a situation where you have had an ethical decision to make. Discuss how you weighed up the values involved in that decision, the decision you made, and the consequences of your action.

I found myself thinking of ways to reduce my personal impact on climate change. One of the things coming up on study after study was diet. I felt that a plant-based diet was something I could get on board with. It was a decision that lined up two of my core values; being constructive rather than destructive and empathy for every living thing. I went with it and 10 years later I am healthier and feel a weight off my shoulders because I'm doing something. It also encouraged me to find other things I could do to help.

How has your culture influenced your values and identity?

As a child I grew up in a loosely protestant background, church on Sunday and a bible story before bed. The memories which stand out from that time are of my mother reminding me to treat people the way I wished to be treated. I took that on board as a kernel and built my ethical young self around. I feel that I am strongly drawn to approaching situations with empathy and compassion because of that.

As a child growing up in the 90's I was introduced to the idea of everyone and everything in the world being interconnected. Through Captain Planet, Beyond 2000 and singing songs of peace and love from the 60's in school assembly, I was taught that everything would be okay if everyone worked together.

I quickly learned that the world is not very good at doing that.

I learned about inequality, hatred and fear of the Other; and it taught me what not to do, that integrity and giving people a chance is what the world needs.

My identity was developing as technology propelled us into an unprecedented age of global self-awareness. I learned about communication and connection in both a literal and emotional sense. Sacrificing one form of connection for another taught me the value of human connection and forming meaningful relationships.

As I entered the work force the term "work-life balance" started making a lot of sense and highlighted for me the value of personal and emotional development. That coupled with introspection and self-awareness, allowed me to become a more engaged person and live a more rewarding life.

Evaluate your strengths and limitations in terms of your learning and career development

Strengths:

• Empathetic: allows me to participate with team work in a non-judgemental way and to consider the user.
• Open-Minded: helps me stay open to new ideas and solutions.
• Creative: Creative thinking and aesthetic values to help me create useful and beautiful projects.
• Idealistic:A strong idealistic compass helps focus on what is best for the user in terms of accessibility. It also ties in with my integrity and allows me to hold myself to a high standard.

Limitations:

When working on a technical problem I tend to take on a completionist gaming mentality:

1. I try to attain every trophy.
2. My brain tells me I need to beat all the bosses on my own to get the credit.

While this has served me well in a lot of ways, but it sometimes ends up looking a bit like this:

1. I turn into a perfectionist.
2. I hack away at problems without asking for help (aside from Google searches).

The key limiter for my learning and career development when this happens is an increase in inefficiency and missing out on learning.

Identify which of your strengths might help you in your learning journey and how they intersect with learning obstacles.

• Openness: I will be open to any solutions and will take any valuable feedback on board.
• Integrity: Once I have committed to completing something it becomes a matter of integrity that I follow through, even if I encounter obstacles.
• Creativity: Will help me think laterally and aesthetically (can be redirected into foster accessibilty)

Share an example from your experience of where you were trying to work productively with others, but there was resistance or tension. Discuss the strategies you used at that time, how effective they were, and your reflections on what other strategies you would try now and why.

I was working on a film project in a group of 4. Our task was to film a series of various lectures and students interacting. We were all complete novices and were given a camera and related equipment and sent on our way. Immediately tension arose from people being ambivalent to what tasks they wanted to do. We were at a bit of an impasse, so I decided to assign tasks, which people did and we got the project done.

The problem with this was that I became the default decision maker and learning opportunities were lost.

Looking back, having worked in a lot of teams since then, I feel that the teams first priority was to actually become a team. Starting by giving everyone space to share a bit about themselves and get to know each other. Both to become more familiar with every one and to share what skills they had or wanted to develop.

Making a safe space gives people a voice and helps them to find a place.