Dang Vu Lam Mai - 1712280036

PERSONAL LEARNING PAPER

It used to take me hours and hours keep researching about how to evaluate people and even
myself. That’s my problem. I am always concerned about human behaviors and wonder the
reasons why they act like that and what motivates them. By writing this paper, I realized that I
am gradually possessing new particular soft skills that I have never been thought of before.
Personally, as a sophomore at Foreign Trade University and following the dream of becoming
a human resource manager of a big company in the future, these couples of skills seem to be
exceedingly beneficial for me and my occupational achievements.

Studying at a business university is not easy at all, at least from my viewpoint. I am usually
burdened with a bunch of questions about the corporate world, the diverse people there and
how to understand them as well as stay strong in this rude and challenging field. Surrounded
with talented friends, taught by outstanding and respectful lecturers in a professional and eager-
to-learn environment but I still cannot realize what I can do to improve and prove myself. I
even once wondered whether I chose the suitable major or not because I see no compatible
between my personalities and the requirements of business. When attending the organizational
behavior class, from scratch, I do not know what to expect. All the thing occurring to me at the
time I hear the name of this subject is the analysis of how an organization works and behaves
and the reasons why. However, after a week, I receives a bigger amount of knowledge than I
have expected, including how I can define and know about myself, besides the useful
information about the corporate and organizations. During the first week, I had a chance of
doing interesting exercises which can revealed something inside me that I have never been
aware of prior to this class. These following section is my own experience in the past which is
linked to theoretical knowledge that I have learnt through my ups and downs.

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Am I a high self-monitors: I always perceived myself as a conservative according to my

unchanged hobbies. I can listen to only a song for a month, every day, without getting bored
of the melody or I keep ordering only one type of drink for years. But my past experience said
no to my self-perceiving. I felt only a little bit shock when starting studying at university and
living far from home while it took my best friends at least a year to get used to urban life in
Hanoi. I was homesick, but I could handle it by joining clubs, taking a part-time job and making
new friends at university. It pointed out that I can adjust myself to adapt to the new
environment quite rapidly. Moreover, while doing my first part-time job as a waitress at a
bubble tea shop, I realize that I have a capability of changing my behavior to suit different
people and different situations. Therefore, the manager recommended me a higher salary
only after one month of working. But some situations also remind of the insensitive am I. I
could not ignore the beggars in the street because I feel that miserable ones lamentable.
Although many beggars nowadays are liars and scammers, I never realized how innocent I was
until the day one of them took advantage of my negligence, robbed my purse and ran faraway,
with his fake broken legs. My behavior showed that I was too careless and innocent that I did
not realize whether a person is lying to me or not. Therefore, I think that I should observe
people and their behaviors carefully to avoid negative things coming to me. This task show
a little more about myself and it revealed a huge difference between what I perceived about
myself and what I really am. It is also becoming a guideline for my thoughts and actions in
the future.

Identify the source of emotions and moods: This is the first time in my life I feel that a theory
can be so true. To say frankly, I lived with negative thoughts. Although no one criticized me
or had bad thoughts about me, I usually thought that I was useless. I thought I was not
outstanding at anything and did not have beautiful appearance. I tried many times to change
the mindset and improve the moods because I want to live happily like other people and want
to gain confidence. However, it had not been successful. I was still considered as bad-tempered
because just a small annoying thing can make me hit the roof. I still had pessimistic thoughts
about myself everyday, mainly my appearance and ability and the negative thinking gradually
isolated me from other people. Then my mom forced me to go to bed early, before 11 p.m. and
join the gym center for 1 year. She said doing that would be good for my health. From scratch,
I did not believe my mother because I was too lazy. But when I tried, as a result, my mood

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became better and I felt happy again! So amazing! I did not know that such healthy activities
can boost my mood so rapidly. Besides, I took part in more social activities such as AIESEC’s
projects. I met new friends there and had fun at the time I was burdened with deadlines from
universities and job. Surprisingly, participating in extracurricular activities could motivate me
to work without put me under pressure. It can also reduce my stress and boost my positive
mood of all the things I did after.

What do we value: I used to ask myself regularly that why my friends keen on taking part in
social activities in a crazy way that they dropped schools or universities to keep joining such
things. In contrast, I highly concentrate on studying. I put learning at school and university
above all and try my best to have high score as much as possible. Therefore, I could not
understand their thoughts because our values are too distinctive: they value community while
I value professional. After realizing that, I avoid doing class group work with them because
they are too busy with their activities and have no time prepare carefully about the assignment
of our team, which negatively results in my grades at university. That is, we can predict
behaviors if knowing the values.

How attitudes affect: I can never forget the memories from the teamwork phase when I
applied to a club at Foreign Trade University. We – strangers – became members of a team and
take the same responsibilities of making a descriptive plan for an event of this club. We had
only one week to get through this challenge and complete all the tasks needed for the plan.
During that week, I had some problems from family so that I could not contribute entirely to
our plan although I really want to. Therefore, some members took out their precious time from
their tight schedules to help me complete the tasks. Our group passed that phase. I learnt that
we should support others to keep the positive moods so that the work will have better result.
Working with strangers, at the beginning, taught me how to realize both their strengths and
weaknesses and how to analyze it for better communication so that we can reach the common
goal. As a leader of that group, this skill was more important than ever. If I did not possess it,
our team would probably meet a failure because of the unreasonable allocation of work.
Therefore, I met my teammates as much as possible and talked a lot of small things to them to
understand more about their lives and also their personalities as well as their attitudes towards

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the assignment and other members of team. In this way, the relationships between us was
becoming more and more closed and as a result, working in group was easier than ever.
Moreover, because I devoted all my energy to finish the tasks and meet the deadlines, I lost 2
kilograms in just the first 3 days of that week due to working pressure and the disorder of
biological clock. I usually went back home at midnight without having dinner or even lunch
but I laid in bed in the morning for hours. Until the fourth day, I did not know how to arrange
time for work as well as work under pressure. Seven days working in team also taught me
how to predict their personalities by observing their behaviors. One of my teammates
always found chances to help and support other members of our team whenever she could and
she had a strong feeling of successful for us. Although she was not good at organizing enough,
she was loved by everyone because of her lovely personalities. Finally, she passed the
teamwork, because the club saw the suitableness and positivity, not the outstanding ability to
work. Hence, I understood the importance of great attitudes in the work life and am trying
to become a positive-attitude person who brings working energy for all the co-workers. I think
it is one of the fundamental characteristics in the traits of a future manager.

Every personal situation in my life, even the smallest, taught me a big lesson about myself and
life. After these lessons gained, I grew up and learned a lot about myself. Now, I become more
self-aware and a little bit more confident than in the past. I have found some of my own inside
values which no one can possess and compare. I found my dominant needs and the sets of
values that I care the most in my life. Moreover, I have gained some skills of observing people
around me as well as how to work together with them successfully. And I realized that, although
we can follow other people’s experiences; experience myself is the best way to become mature.
I think that we should not be afraid of challenges or something new; they are the fastest paths
for you in the process of finding the real and proper you. Skills are fundamental, they can help
you to survive in this complicated world and also help you overcome any hardships in your
life. Keep experiencing, keep learning. It is the best advice I can give you and I think what it
brings to you will surprise you in the near future.