Self-assessment of skills and strengths
Working through the activities in this class made me realize the skills I developed through working and studying.
Dependability was a valuable skill that I learned as a child, and having this skill is a career or a business advantage. The culinary business field is a harsh and competitive industry. My parent’s food business never closed, and their company’s brand got recognized by literally weathering typhoons. When all other food businesses were closed due to holidays and harsh weather, my parent’s store was the only one open to serve essential workers’ food. Getting all the required activities submitted on time is a challenge in this course. However, as I work late nights trying to finish the work requirements on time, I remind myself that I am working in a warm house without flying debris, unlike my other workplace.
Another useful skill that I developed through working and studying was code-switching. Learning the basics of speaking and writing in English at school while working at a street food stall gives one the ability to interact with people from different economic statuses. Our family, employees and customers were from the working-class background, while the mall administrators where their food branches are located communicate in English. Since my mom doesn’t write English very well, my dad and I were the ones who wrote English business documents. The ability to code-switch tremendously helped me when I moved to Canada, as I had developed the ability to get along with different people. Taking this course expanded my code-switching ability because it teaches how to communicate with people in higher education. Canadians are open to diverse cultures, but Canadians still prefer to hire and work with people with similar backgrounds. Learning how educated Canadians prefer to communicate is an advantage and will expand the range of people I can work for or become my future customers. Using my code-switching skills, I can even create different brands for different market segments.
Another valuable skill that I developed is perseverance. Editing and re-editing are required in this course, and I feel that I have done this task all my life. Growing up in a competitive business environment, our family had to constantly assess our business and make quick adjustments to make our stores competitive. We learn by doing the necessary action and measuring and correcting our actions daily. The way writing is taught in this course was the opposite of how I learned how to write English. I had to relearn how to write English, which takes a long time. Fortunately, I like learning and challenges.
Organization and standardization are two skills that I learned from studying. These two skills are difficult to learn working on the street in the developing world. As a Filipino, we tend to look at the whole picture, and we don’t have words that directly translate to standardization and organization. Organizing and standardizing my parent’s business procedures allowed their business to multiply into several branches. My mom’s second food stall was a franchise, and its procedures were based on American fast-food chains. Since we knew how to read English, we could copy the system and apply it to the street food store, allowing the business to expand into several branches. The technical communications book works similarly. It broke down the parts of technical writing into a series of components and steps while providing the students with examples that make the document easy to follow.
The original topic for this blog is about how your skills and strengths as a student support your future career. However, as I thought about this topic, I never really was just a student. Working in my parent’s store allowed me to gain valuable experiences that a person rarely gets when one solely studies at school. Working taught me dependability and perseverance while studying teaches organization and standardization. In learning how to code-switch, having exposure to two different worlds is vital in learning this skill. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to be in an environment that allowed me to develop all these skills.
Application of my skills and strengths in the dietetics field
Based on my background, I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to stop, rethink my career, choose another line of expertise and do another degree. I am applying as a dietitian because I have observed the rapid changes in the food industry, which affect the population’s health. Even though my family was struggling financially when I was young, we had access to nutritious food, which allowed us to grow, work and study well. I have seen how the culinary world shifted from fresh tamarind and coconut to instant flavoured powders and how poor people changed their diets from fish to instant noodles. I also notice how my hardworking peers struggle with health challenges due to inaccessibility to nutrition information and nutritious food. In the dialysis clinic that I volunteer for, ninety percent of the patients are first-generation immigrants. First-generation immigrants encounter various barriers that prevent them from living healthy lives, such as language, income, education, culture, racism, and access to health services. As a dietitian, I plan to use my code-switching skills to reach first-generation immigrants and marginalized Canadian populations by developing nutrition programs that match each demographic’s culture using the appropriate language. As a former Vancouver caterer, I can organize multiethnic teams that serve people from different cultural backgrounds. I intend to use my code-switching and organization skills in the dietetics field to reach as many disadvantaged cultural groups in the community.