Herman Melville said: “It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation“. I totally agree. Let’s try. Let’s pursue innovation and originality. Most of time, our inner fears lie in failure… the fear to fail. In itself, fear is not that bad. It reminds us of dangers and the possibility of losses, and motivates us to think our actions carefully. But fear should be controlled. Fear should not paralyze us. I’ll try that idea in which I believe. I believe in myself, in my ideas, and thereby, I’ll pursue my goals, my projects. The process of trying is, already, our first reward. Let’s enjoy it.
At the core of innovation lies the courage to challenge the status quo, to question established norms, and to push the boundaries of what is deemed possible. It is a mindset that embraces experimentation, embraces risk-taking, and embraces the unknown, recognizing that true progress is often born out of stepping beyond the confines of familiarity. When individuals embrace innovation in their lives, they open themselves up to a world of endless possibilities, where creativity flourishes and new horizons beckon.
One of the greatest obstacles to innovation is the fear of failure. Our inner fears often manifest as doubts and hesitations, whispering cautionary tales of potential setbacks and disappointments. However, it is essential to understand that failure is not the end but rather a stepping stone on the path to success. Embracing failure as a natural part of the innovation process allows individuals to learn, adapt, and grow, gaining valuable insights that pave the way for future breakthroughs.
Achieving an academic degree is a significant milestone that opens doors to a world of opportunities and personal growth. The journey towards completing a degree is filled with challenges, triumphs, and valuable lessons that shape your academic and professional future. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore the importance of attaining a university degree, strategies to overcome challenges, staying motivated, learning to learn effectively, writing a thesis or pursuing an internship, prioritizing relaxation and well-being, and embracing the transformative experience of university studies.
Importance of Achieving an Academic Degree Earning an academic degree is a transformative experience that equips you with knowledge, skills, and credentials essential for career advancement and personal development. A degree not only enhances your job prospects and earning potential but also fosters critical thinking, problem-solving abilities, and lifelong learning habits. By completing a university degree, you demonstrate dedication, perseverance, and a commitment to excellence, setting a solid foundation for future success in your chosen field.
A goal is a very specific result that we want to achieve in a precise, future time. It’s an experience not yet lived, although firmly wished. Let’s recall from our first post about goals, that an objective or goal is a personal or perhaps organizational desired end point in development. It is usually endeavored to be reached in finite time by setting deadlines. Albeit goals, dreams and expectations are related concepts, there are important differences that will be discussed further on. As it often occurs with dreams, there are virtually no limits on the number of goals we may set, since goals represent, in essence, states or things that we wish to achieve in the future. Unlike dreams, though, goals require that we define them precisely, and we have to work for them in the present time, right now. Thereby, goals are nearer, within reach.
Goals and Expectations
We should not confuse goals and expectations. Goals are the concrete and positive result of a fulfilled wish, and they provide satisfaction and success. On its side, expectations are focused on the behavior that we expect from other people. Setting a goal also means directing all our efforts towards achieving the goal, combining several tasks in order to attain it. However, to have an expectation reduces to delegating our wishes to the lucky concurrence of external factors.
Therefore, setting goals helps us to empower strategies, to create effectivity and to dominate the process of achieving whatever thing we wish. Besides, our goals create new opportunities, and improve our capacity for overcoming obstacles and conquering unexpected hurdles. As we move forward and reach the little goals that we had set, we also have the feeling of walking our paths faster, with a boosted self-confidence and a diminishing desire to return to the past. By the way, when we feel little or no desire to return to the past, we can be sure that we have improved as human beings.
Goals and Dreams
As aforesaid, a difference between goals and dreams lies in the time required for reaching them. Goals are closer. Besides, motivation also establishes a notorious difference between goals and dreams. We have more immediate and realistic motivations for reaching goals. On the contrary, dreams’ motivation is typically diffuse, sometimes very unclear.
However, dreams are the ultimate fuel of life, no matter how fuzzy they may be. As life moves on, we will feel the dream, approach the dream, dream the dream… we will be continuously reshaping the dream. Dreams are, after all, made of a very malleable matter. In life, we walk towards the sun, and our sun is composed of just dreams. Every step toward such sun kills a doubt. And each of such steps is a goal.
Organizing our Goals
We have to prepare a few lists for visualizing our goals and, in general, our action and thinking paths. When we write down our goals in a list, we are defining and outlining a plan to reach the goals. We are committing ourselves to fulfilling them based on practical aspects. On the contrary, the list of dreams contains relatively remote possibilities, excepting perhaps the first or second dream. In order to reach the first dream of the list, we have to conquer a chain of goals. In short, goals are the intermediate steps required for achieving the ultimate objective of your life.
Typically, the first prerequisite for a shining job interview is a well-redacted and organized Résumé. A shining Résumé can move you to the first places of a list comprising perhaps hundreds of prospects. Therefore, your Résumé should list your best germane abilities for the job you are applying to… those abilities that would guarantee a star performance in the job. Remember that you are the ultimate responsible for highlighting your attributes to constitute a valid option to integrate the new team that the company is forming. In order to determine which of your abilities are the most suited for the job…
you have to research your potential employer beforehand
…that will give you a very important lead. Get as much information as you can about the business, and also about the potential interviewers (you should research their style and attitude… that’s very important). If you know someone who has previously taken an interview in that company, talk with them about their experiences in the interview. Try to extract pure information, i.e., don’t let them to influence you (specially about the job being impossible or, on the contrary, being too easy).
1. First Approach
Remember that you have to dress with a professional look, according to the nature of the job. You are a professional… thereby each and every aspect of you must communicate that fact. Now, during the interview, take into account that Interviewers will ask questions related to their company, for example, why would you like to work for us? They may ask you about your opinion on the company’s products or history. Typically, this information is available on the company’s website, and by knowing it you demonstrate a genuine interest for the job.
2. Virtues and Limitations
Talk about your virtues, but not excessively. In this regards apply balance and good sense. Answer this question presenting your virtues in the context of the requirements of the job you’re applying to, with a clear and concise language. However, other almost granted question they will do is about your defects, thereby you must also be prepared to answer that. Furthermore, the interviewer may ask about your abilities and limitations: prepare an answer beforehand in order to allow you to present your defects as a new opportunity for keep improving.
3. Expect the Unexpected
You have to be ready for anything… a group interview, a forum about some specific problem of the company, a written exam, and so on. Carry any material you think you may need: think of the interview as your first day of work.
Confidence
When entering to the interview, greet to your interviewer with a smile. Visual contact must also be direct and firm (but not exceedingly). Remember that, no matter the circumstances, you have to act formally instead of dared or zany (refer to your interviewer using his title… Dr., Mr., Engineer, etc.), unless they demand you to treat them informally (but that’s relatively rare; read point 6. Be on the alert). Listen to your interviewer very carefully. Sometimes the applicants are so focused in the things they want to say that forget what they are really being asked about. No answer is good if it does not truly answer the matter asked about.
Typically, the first prerequisite for a sound job application is a well-redacted and organized Résumé (a document closely related to the Curriculum Vitae, but the latter focuses more on education, publications, and other accomplishments). A shining résumé can move you to the first places of a list comprising perhaps hundreds of prospects. Therefore, your résumé should list your germane abilities according to the job you are applying to… remark those abilities that would guarantee a star performance in the job. Remember that you are the ultimate responsible for highlighting your attributes to constitute a valid option to integrate the new team that the company is forming. However, a good résumé is not a guarantee of success, but it indeed is our presentation letter, and it may be the deciding factor in the employer’s final decission. Often the résumé is processed by the employers in order to select a group of applicants for interviewing them. Thereby, our résumé has to grab the employer’s attention positively. Our résumé has to be professionally elaborated, and reflect clearly, concisely and attractively the information about our academic and professional achievements. A résumé is our marketing letter… and our first goal has to be that the recruiters or prospective employers can’t put down our résumé.
Let’s see how recruiters or prospective employers will not put down our résumé.
Even to cut a flower requires good sense. Good sense, prudence, sound practical judgment. There is nothing in the world which deprives us of enjoying this quality. Good sense allows us to be excellent managers, professionals, friends, husbands/wives, and especially, it opens the doorway to the most precious gift of human beings: self-confidence. Self-confidence is one of those virtues we frequently don’t know how to handle, or that simply we mistreat.
Good sense is the primary and the conditio sine qua non of a better and longer life. Thanks to it we are able to avoid wars, conflicts, hunger, and getting into troubles in general. It is only a matter of just applying it. The converse, i.e. a bad sense of life balance, turns us into fragile souls, easy preys for evil, envy, and lies. A lack of good sense provides a fake sensation of power… power which indeed is only a cheap mask for selfishness. A lack of good sense separates us from our family, our friends and from the entire world. Moreover, that fake power may lead to an hyperactivity which ultimately will burn us.
When I have to hire someone for any position in my company, I always pay close attention to the below discussed 7 attributes of leadership, because I always strive to hire people with leadership traits (even when the job is not a key managerial position.) I always want the best people, no matter the size, complexity or responsibility of the job. I know that, as time goes by, groups of workers with leadership traits perform and coordinate a lot better than simple people. And the today new assistant may hopefully become a very important director in a few years.
Furthermore, I prefer the democratic (also referred to as participative) leadership style: in this case, the leader offers guidance to the group, but also participates in the group, and promotes feedback from other members. Note that this style is not inconsistent with the view of everyone in a group acting as a leader! The democratic style is also suitable for the modern dynamic environments because it allows dealing with fast-changing circumstances. Other styles, such as authoritarian or delegative leaderships, are very harmful and obsolete.
Acquiring the habits of highly successful students… that’s a truly important topic! We humans are innate learners, as learning is the cornerstone for survival. We must remember, abstract and apply knowledge in diverse (and often harsh) environments in order to develop into and behave as truly intelligent beings. In short, the adaptability and resilience we exhibit stems from learning. Now, a key issue to learning is the driving force behind it, i.e., the motivation or stimuli to learn. We can learn because of fear (we want to learn how to protect ourselves from danger.) We can learn just out of curiosity (our natural inquisitive behavior.) We can learn because we want to reach some social status (approval of others is a potent stimuli to learn.) We can learn simply because we love to learn new things everyday. There are plenty of reasons to learn and yours may easily be a mixture of these. Health and money are important things in life, but learning is the base for using them wisely 🙂 If we are to succeed in life, we must hone our learning skills.
How to choose a topic for a thesis or dissertation is an important issue. This post answers a question from a student (you know who you are!). It’s mostly a compilation of experience about visualization, proposal and creation of your thesis or dissertation. Some students fear (or panic) when the time of thesis arrives. I’ve even met people with the EBT (Everything But the Thesis) syndrome, but that is a very complex problem and I’m no psychologist. Please, keep reading if you are not afraid of the document we refer to as “thesis”, and you are determined to succeed. Effectively, the thesis or dissertation represents a written expression of your specialized knowledge, with an scope scarcely above that of the toughest work you fulfilled during your studies (sometimes not even that). Nothing out of the ordinary. It is a document in which you express, typically as the last requirement for the degree, your command over a concrete subject. Often, the thesis is a document of regular transcendence.
How to choose a topic for a thesis or dissertation?
The problem lies in the huge load of stress students have to endure, stemming from the academic and social environments: you have to deliver a work with superlative quality (and has to distinguish you from your peers), the haste to innovation, the won (or lost) prestige, the opportunities, the castles in the air, the afterward, failure poking its head out of the window, the defense, among other factors. But sometimes, to tell the truth, it’s simply that the student has acquired no significant skill in the career’s subjects (not so unlikely as it may seem), or suffers from a traditional chronic laziness. Nevertheless, for the time being we will focus on the essence of the document. Upcoming posts (perhaps) will touch on those surrounding topics.
1. How to choose a topic for a thesis?
Let’s try to unravel the document’s mistery. Best dissertations are done by those researchers very knowledgeable about their topic and about research techniques and methodologies. They know that every study should start by investigating the studied object. In our case, we must first establish whata thesis is, and what its purpose is. Here the average student answers, with praiseworthy self-confidence, that a thesis is a document whose exclusive purpose is to achieve, finally, the degree. Bravo, it’s impossible to be clearer, but we must never forget that, in life, milestones or stages are not as important as the paths and transits between such stages. Yet, something stands out in such answer:
You have to realize that your goal is to fulfill an academic requirement
However, this by no means allows you to take a lot of liberties, or to face up to your research half-heartedly. It’s but a reason to act with humility. There are three key words for thesis’ success:
Humility, Communication and Balance
Irrespective of the importance that you confer to your investigation, at no time you should work thinking of drawing international attention to you, or dreaming of that incredibly remunerated job you will obtain, or about the avalanche of trophies and medals. If you distract your mind with this, at some time you are going to lose your concentration, and the project will just slip out of your hands. Please, remember that the thesis represents, simultaneously, discipline and learning exercises, and you must assume it like so. The composure and integrity you show while walking your paths is more important than the path itself, and than the destination. Finally, realize that a thesis is an exercise of communication. And, never give too much, never ask for too much.
