Why do I write a Blog

I have recently read this book Rework that talks about the importance of writing in the business, as a main tool of communication which is clearly essential. Good writers have plenty of transferable skills like omission of irrelevant information, larger vocabulary and clear understanding of ideas that help them write well. These are great skills that I should try to improve in myself and hence it gives me the reason to write on my blog. Hopefully with time i will become interesting to read, but for now I keep on practicing.

Blogging is a great medium for this kind of sparring, as it opens your work up to the world and allow for people to discover your writing. The better you become at writing the more people you will attract It's really that simple, so all you should do is start writing an with time you shall see results.
I came across this little video that talks about blogging today and it highlights some of the benefits of blogging, specifically the process of explaining yourself.

Coming Back

 This past weekend I came back home after being away for almost 7 months. It sounds pretty unreal just thinking about it, but this is yet another testament to the fact that time flies, as I certainly didn’t feel like it was 7 months maybe 2-3 at the most. 

I felt euphoric after my plane landed in Pearson International this Saturday, and I had imagined that coming home would be magical and exciting. It wasn’t that at all. I found that people had lives regardless if I was there or not. I didn’t expect people to drop everything and welcome me back, so this wasn’t as much of a shock for me. The thing that got me the most is the speed of this city.

Everything here just happens fast, especially downtown. I felt a little bit out of sync walking around the city.

A lot of things seem old but unfamiliar, it’s really a unique feeling that you get, I don’t know if there is anything like it. I imagine it would be much more distinct if I travel back to the town that I was born in, as I wasn’t there for 7 years already.

In other words, I am back I want to try to get some writing in so keep an eye out if you are reading this.

Dealing with regret >= Accepting regret

Let's examine the chart that was presented during the presentation that draws things that we regret the most. Focus on education and career in the survey results that were presented in this video indicate a common viewpoint of priorities that are shared by the people of the society. Certainly this is correlated to the cultural dimensions of North American people, and their protestant work ethic. This is something that we cannot escape and we will inevitable place more importance on these values, statistically speaking.

When talking about regret one has to have a reference point of comparison of their actions. Often if not always this comparison is found in the outside world, which is explained by cultural tendencies, or dimensions. For example, I regret not doing this major at school because it is in demand now, or because the one that I have is not sufficient or useful for me, both of which make me less competitive in the job market and competitiveness is highly valued in North American culture. 

I also believe that acceptance of regret can be used as a form of excuse for lack of action. Fact of the matter is bad decisions should be examined and if you are blessed enough to commit enough of them you can determine a pattern in the motivations and use that as a tool to understand yourself and turn that perceived weakness into your strength.

For example, I have discovered a while back that I have this tendency to doodle things when I ought to be focusing on the lecture that is being presented to me. Having to rely on these sporadic and rather useless notes caused plenty of regret. So I read up on note taking techniques and realized that perhaps I have a tendency to think visually, which later on I have included into my study methods. So when taking notes I draw plenty of dependency charts, which actually helped me significantly, furthermore when preparing for exams I would draw these Idea maps to cover the material that I had to memorize and that also helped me immensely.

My point is, things that you regret for the most part are culture driven, rather than merely accepting things as they happened everything you do can be turned into an opportunity to explore yourself, which in turn is an opportunity to better yourself. 

Top 5 reasons to join a professional student club council.

1.       Opportunity to meet people. University may seem overly task and grade focused if you don’t find ways to enhance your University experience with other activities. Student club is a perfect place to meet people that you may otherwise not meet on campus. They may be from different majors or from different years and overall just people that you do not gravitate toward naturally. This is a great opportunity to meet people based on your interest, and develop these interests into passions together.

2.       Develop your soft skills. Yes you can make an argument that being in university alone develops your soft skills and perhaps many things that involve dealing with people develop your soft skills and that you don’t really need to join a professional student club to improve them. However, being involved in something that you are passionate about and that you enjoy doing and learning about will certainly give you motivation to participate and get the most out of your involvement. For example, you can certainly exercise at home, but being in the gym will give you extra motivation for reaching your set targets. That’s an interesting slogan: “Professional student club, it’s like a gym for your interests”

3.       Crystallize your interests and career objectives. Building on the previous point, leaning into your interests would enable you to find out more about the profession. The more you learn about different specializations of your profession the more determined you become as your goal in your career becomes clearer. You are starting to paint a big picture perspective for yourself, and most of all you start to figure out which place you would like to fit yourself in after graduation.

4.       Network with people in your industry. Professional student clubs are usually somehow connected to outside organizations, either through personal connections or more formal sponsorships and partnerships. This is a good setting to meet the people from these organizations. Also, and perhaps more important are the connections made at the council, as your colleagues have seen you in action and likely have plenty of good things to say about you. Also they are likely to be in the same field of work as you, so that just increases your network of professionals.

5.       Improve your grades. Although surprising but virtually guaranteed correlation exists between being involved in a student professional student club and the scholarly achievements. Usually people that are involved with professional student clubs are the people that prefer to stay busy and hence are good at prioritizing their tasks. This quality is certainly developed rather than innate, as I can say with certainty that I have developed that trait myself when I was involved in the professional student clubs and studies and worked part time. The key here is to find the balance and maintain the focus on pursuing your passion.

To find out more about the clubs that I was involved in you can view my LinkedIn profile, which is connected to the badge on the right hand side of this page. Feel free to connect with me over LinkedIn if you wish.