CST 300 Week 4

Week 4

Having just withdrawn from my philosophy course at Santa Monica College this week, it was kind of funny to have more philosophy reading. I've enjoyed reading the assignments on ethics and really look forward to doing research for my ethics paper. This has made it a little difficult to keep my eye on the industry analysis paper. Since I didn't get any reviews from my peers online for the industry analysis paper, I had my parents and my significant other review my paper. I think they all came up with good critiques, but it's been difficult to get the time in to address all of them. I'm still proud of my paper and hope that shows. As far as the lecture section of the course goes, I've done goal setting practices before so it doesn't feel like I've really learned anything new there, but I understand why it's emphasized. One small complaint is that it would be nice to have links to pages that don't require a subscription.

Reading on Goal Setting

Again, there were a few pages that I couldn't completely finish reading because you have to be a member, which were the pages on backwards planning, well-formed outcomes in goal setting, and personal mission statements. However, I get the idea of some of them. From the pages I was able to access, I acquired some good tips, like making each goal statement positive and sure. It seemed very light to acknowledge and move on if your goal isn't attainable. I thought that could be pretty demoralizing.

Here's my goal plan for owning a home:

• 10 year: I will own a home.
• 5 year: I will have a Master's Degree.
• 1 year: I will have either a promotion at work or a significant pay raise.
• 6 mo: I will know which city I want to buy my home in.
• 1 mo: I will know my preferred school where I will go for my master's degree program.

Based on the quiz (I got a 56) "How Good is Your Goal Setting?," I need to work on my motivation. Perhaps I'll be following some of their advice to make some quick wins. However, It was pretty dead on about me being super prepared.

Career Goal Setting Reading

After reading this, I've realized that I really need to work on networking and negotiating to prepare for my next potential job. There's some very solid advice in this article. I believe it's easy to look over or not consider how much you're worth. Putting a price on yourself can be a daunting task and many people (like me!) probably price themselves too low. Also, some fantastic advice in this article is to begin tracking accomplishments. Listed here are the 7 career goals you need to succeed:

1. Know your worth. Know how much money you should be making.
2. Track accomplishments. Track accomplishments as you achieve them.
3. Networking. Networking is the best way to get your foot in the door for a better career, or really anything. 
4. Self assessment. Consider where you're at. If you don't like what you see, make goals to change that and get to a state you'd like to be in.
5. Update your skills to keep up with change. Lots of change happens every day. Learn new things in any field to keep yourself relevant.
6. Negotiate. Getting an offer and negotiating pay is part of a business transaction. Use it like it is.
7. Allow for downtime. Rest and have fun outside of work!

Educational Goals

These are set up in a two year spread, as that's approximately the duration of the program.

• 2 year: I will host an application that I've built on my own server that I've built.
• 1 year: I will know how to set up my own server.
• 6 mo: I will have the MVP for an application built.
• 1 mo: I will know which application I want to build.

Career Goals

My career goals are as follows:

• 10 year: I will have a job that I can see myself at for a long time.
• 5 year: I will have attended many meet up events and intertwined myself into the community to network.
• 1 year: I will know what I need to do to get the position I'd like at the company I'd like.
• 6 month: I will have a list of companies that I would like to work for, where I can build something meaningful.
• 1 month: I will have learned a new technology while at work.

Review Team Members Time Management 

Since I only have two team members, I will be reviewing both of theirs. It's difficult to compare theirs to mine, as I don't have a family (only a significant other) and both of them do. John and I are similar in that we're both trying to race from work to an in person class and then do homework following that for this course. Ashley and I are not so similar because she still has a young child and needs to be home taking care of her child after work.

For John my comments and suggestions are:

• Pack a sandwich or something for dinner to keep him going through class.
• Talk to instructors regarding work conflicts if tardiness is a regular issue.
• Stick to his planned schedule, or don't schedule his time as tightly.

For Ashley my comments and suggestions are: 

• Log what she's actually doing and look at what areas her time is going to. Prioritize the schedule and adjust accordingly.
• Look at the syllabus. While there isn't complete detail on assignments, there's at least an overview of what will be happening.