Growth

Over the course of the week and over the course of the semester, I have learned a lot about growth and how someone as a person can grow in any area of their life.  All my classes this semesters have pushed me to grow and learn all that I could so that I could excel in each one of my classes.  I had to develop a lot of different skills in order to do well.  It pushed me to study hard, practice, and search for what I needed.  A lot of times, I had to step out of my comfort zone so that I could make that growth in the areas where I lacked.  In isn't easy to step out of your comfort zone but it is the only way that you can grow.  Life is all about growth.  If we want to get to where we want in life, we have to grow.

How can you grow if you don't push yourself?  If you don't grow and progress, then you will not go anywhere.  When we set goals and make plans to achieve those goals, we take steps toward growth.  Growth is in everything.  Every time we learn something new, we grow.  Every time we change something in our life, we grow.  Without growth, there is no progress.

I am going to do everything I can to make myself grow in the right directions.  I want to learn all that I can while I am still in school and also take the opportunity to teach myself other things that will help me to become who I want to be.  I want to be like a mustard seed.  A mustard seed is one of the smallest seeds there is but it grows to be a very large tree.  I want my growth to be just like that.
A quote that I love says, "There is no growth in the comfort zone; there is no comfort in the growth zone".  I want to live by that quote by getting out of my comfort zone in every situation possible so that I can grow as much as possible.  I know that if I put that in practice, that I will be better and that I will be able to grow in ways I never thought possible.

Growth Blog Post

Networking Event with Needle

About a week ago, I was able to attend a networking event with the company Needle.  I was able to meet and talk with all the major executives of the company.  Specifically, I met Scott Pulsipher, COO, Mike Montour, SVP/Sales, and Morgan Lynch, CEO.  I exchanged numbers and had great conversations with all of them.  I was able to talk to them about their company and what they do.  I learned a lot about networking and why it is important.  After talking with them, I realized that most of them got that job, where they are at today, because they knew someone who helped them to get the job.  I learned that networking is huge in today's world if you want to be able to have a lot of opportunities and chances to work in various different companies and positions within those companies.

This was important to me because in just a couple of years, I will be looking for a career and now I  have more contacts to refer myself to in order to look at all my opportunities.  Networking is important because you can't always do everything on your own,  a lot of times you need help from an outside source and the people you know can give you that help so that you can have the best opportunity that is possible.

After attending that event, It really got me excited to network with people.  So now, I am going to go to a lot more networking events with different companies and organizations so I can get to know a lot of people and make connections with people all over the U.S. and maybe even the world.  The more connected we are in this day and age, the more well off we will be.  I am going make a much greater effort to network and get to know a lot of different people in a lot of different areas.  It isn't what you know, it is who you know.

Remote Team Meeting

While working on our team project, we used Google Hangouts for our remote team meeting.  To be honest, I don't like doing team meetings that way.  First of all, some people might have that good of a connection and so sometimes it is hard to hear that person and things get misunderstood.  Second, it is hard to be able to show or explain something to one of your teammates over the video call.  We used Google Docs to share our information but it was hard to be able to explain our part to the other people during the video chat.  When we were able to meet in person it was a lot easier to talk about the paper and edit it together.  I know that sometimes remote online meetings are the only option because we all have different schedules and are very busy, but in the future, I would like to avoid these at all cost because personally I think that it is a lot more efficient to get together in person to do the project.  I found that our team got a lot more done that way.

Studying effectively

As the semester has come to an end, I have realized that I need to study more effectively so I can do well on my finals.  During the semester, I have studied well but I feel like in some aspects I have lacked.  So I have been learning how to study more effectively.  Studying effectively isn't easy, but as I have tried harder, I have seen a big change in the things that I am retaining from everything that I have learned.  My study habits throughout the semester have only included studying for tests the night before and the day of.  But I have tried to start studying a few days before and then study a little bit every day until the day of my test.

Only studying the day before and the day of, also known as cramming, isn't effectively because it is a lot of information to remember all at once.  Also, if you cram, then right after the test you forget everything that you studied.  It is important to study effectively so that after you use that information on the test, you still remember it later on.  We are going to school to be able to remember/learn things rather than just get good grades.

I am going to start doing my best to study more effectively so I learn the material and retain it later on.  I am at BYU in order to learn and not good grades so I am going to study more effectively by trying to look at my material on the same day that I learn it and studying for my tests a few days in advance and looking at the material a little every day.  I know that if I do this, then I will learn a lot more and be able to use those things in my life.