I appreciated the opportunity to improve my professional presence through my ePortfolio this semester. I completely re-did my site and invested time in making it cleaner and more clearly showcasing who I am professionally. The clean, easy-to-navigate format is my favorite part of my ePortfolio. My professor, Dr. Morgan, offered excellent guidance for how to curate our ePs and I became aware of all the resources that are available for assistance in website creation, including the ePortfolio Studio in the Perry Library. One of my biggest challenges with creating and curating my eP was the initial set-up and learning my way around Wix. Getting formatting “just right” could be tricky, and there are so many options to chose from! I really appreciated the feedback I received from my peer mentor, because one could spend hours deciding on a color scheme or aligning fonts, but this meeting allowed me to get an outside perspective and it turned out I didn’t need as many adjustments as I would have thought! I would advise future students to visit the ePortfolio Studio. They have weekly walk-in hours as well as appointments, and it is a great way to get quick feedback and assistance with any hang-ups. I spent hours trying to configure the website on my own; I could have saved a lot of time by going to the ePortfolio Studio! I would recommend future students to take full advantage of this resource.
I love the idea that I can share this with employers to showcase my work and personality. One thing I did to improve my ePortfolio was embedding my resume in the PDF viewer. It makes it easily accessible to potential employers and I can easily update it as I change the document version and add on new experiences. I look forward to adding more of my papers and projects to my eP, as suggested by Dr. Morgan. She even pointed out that we could go to the Writing Center to “polish” them before posting, which I think I will do once I have finished my classes for the semester. I take a lot of pride in my papers and often find myself discussing my research topics with friends and family anyway. Showcasing previous coursework also helps me to feel like the work that I have done was for more than just a grade; I truly did learn a lot and enjoy the process and I think my work is worth sharing.
One of my favorite things about communications courses is that they are instantly applicable. The Conflict Management Style Analysis allowed me to apply the topics we learned in class to reflect on our own style in managing conflict. The questions helped me to dig deeper and consider my styles both from my own perception and a more objective measurement via a quiz. The only difficult part is changing habits rather than defaulting to negative conflict patterns and behaviors, especially with family. It was almost funny how many times I would realize after an argument that I did the very things I had just learned not to do, and had forgotten the strategies. It may take some time to integrate these new strategies, but I am thankful that I have become more aware so that I can grow and improve as a communicator, both in my personal and professional life.
In the future, I hope to work for a non-profit organization or ministry, so great communication skills and working well with others is a must. I think the ability to see conflict from a wider perspective, considering both your own goals and the goals of others is essential to finding compromise. As I mentioned earlier, I have also become more aware of my own patterns and behaviors in conflict, some of which can make conflict worse. An example of this is postponement. I tend to avoid conflict because it is hard to find a good time, but that can lead to resentment and greater difficulties. However, we talked in this class about postponement as a technique to address issues at an optimal time. I have learned from experience not to have difficult conversations when I am tired, hungry, occupied, or otherwise able to give my conflict partner my full attention. Conversely, I have brought up conflict at the wrong time before and felt frustrated that the other people didn’t seem to value my opinion, when in reality, they were not as attentive because of timing. The skill of postponement involves acknowledging the conflict and setting a time to talk about it. It is important to me that I feel my concerns are heard, but it is not always the right time to talk about them. Postponement ensures that my concerns do get addressed, and in the appropriate time and space.
Comments