Professor Latif and Shy

UPADM-GP 260
Integration paper 6
10/18/2022
Integration Paper #6

When I read my results from the strengths finder form, I was particularly shocked to

discover that my top strengths were fairness, equity, and justice. Although these are part of my

values, I never considered them to be one of my utmost principles, and I never thought that this

would be my number one quality. However, after reflecting back to the times when I worked and

collaborated with others in a team, it made sense as I would always feel the need to include every

member in a discussion, and valued the contribution of everyone in the team. Furthermore, as I

have also worked as a teacher in the past, I believe that the experience shaped me to treat others

more equally, as I tried my best to reduce and limit my implicit bias while I was teaching

students in a classroom. This is particularly when considering my future career journey, as the

ability to think objectively and treat everyone fairly is an important quality of being a leader. In

the workplace, while collaborating in a team project, having this quality can also ensure that the

group would have a positive teamwork dynamic. Another strength that I did not expect was

perspective wisdom. I usually consider myself to be a good listener, as people tend to come to

me to share their struggles and ask for advice. When dealing with other people’s problems, they

tend to tell me that I am surprisingly very rational and observant, and can analyze the issue as

well as present the problem to them perfectly. However, I never associated this quality with the

idea that I have perspective wisdom. I always thought that people would come to me because I

was willing to listen, and that I am eager to help them out. When thinking from another

perspective, it is possible that people come to me deliberately to hear the things I offer, as I tend

to do it in a way that prioritizes their own interests first. This is useful in my future career
journey, as it means that people consider me as someone who can help them out, and feel

comfortable about reaching out and communicating with me to discuss issues that I can assist

them with.

With my past work experience, I only have positive things to say about my experience

working as a media intern and also an online English tutor. For the media internship, I had to

work collaboratively with others. I felt like what made my work experience positive was having

a good mentor, who actively supported me with professional guidance and was willing to listen

to my concerns and questions with open mindedness. She also gave me very clear instructions,

which helped me as I did not have any prior working experience in media (editing videos and

contacting directors, cameramens, and audience). As a result, I was able to complete all my work

without much difficulty and learned a lot from her work ethic. On top of that, when working as a

teacher, the atmosphere is totally different as I was able to determine and choose my own lesson

materials to teach, and did not have to communicate with anyone except for my students. Hence,

I felt like I was solely working for myself, and all of my actions would only affect my own

earnings for the month. Furthermore, there was no one there to give me directions or

instructions; I had a lot of freedom. I felt like I enjoyed having this freedom, in a sense, to choose

what I wanted to do with my own work. Although the experiences were totally different, both

were very positive and I enjoyed them very much.