In this unit, the focus was towards formal report proposal writing, networking and resume building, as well as outlines and progress reports. Overall, I believe this portion of the course not only challenged my professional writing skills, but my time management as well.
Before taking this course, I was not aware of the impact that LinkedIn had in the professional world. As a result, I never gave a thought to start up a profile, despite many of my peers’ advice to do so. Based on the tips my group had listed in their memos, I was able to set up my profile to appear professional, and was able to connect with a lot of my old peers who had suggested that I create a professional profile. One of my peers already had a professionally set up profile, and I used it as a reference for my own. I carefully selected the relevant skills and achievements, customized my URL, and built my profile according for my preferred audience. Because it was my first time in using this platform, there were several practises that my peers had listed that I could not put to use. At the time, I was not able to be fully engaged in the community, but I had joined several groups and associations to start building my network. I had then added friends, family, and coworkers to this network so they could endorse me as I will have done for them.
I decided to base my report on the issue of financial illiteracy amongst students. Preparing the proposal and outline was difficult as I was not used to planning so far ahead for an assignment. I had to plan out how to efficiently carry out an analysis of this issue, as well think of relevant questions to ask in the interviews. After many revisions and writing out the outline, it was much easier for me to realize what information I had wanted to be used into my report. As I was also working 40hrs a week, time management was also difficult for me at this time.
My peer review was not done correctly, and I had not followed instructions. This was due to the fact that I could not navigate the website, and I had based my instructions off the course schedule, textbook, and looking at how a peer has done it. This has taught me the importance of looking through the site layout, or simply ask questions if I noticed that I was not receiving adequate instructions. However, reading and critically analyzing my peer’s report has given me ideas on how to improve my writing, and receiving their feedback has been equally as important and helpful.
Attachment: 301 Carmen Chow Formal Report Proposal