What I Have Learned While Studying at University

Introduction

After graduating Master of Business Administration, I have to take one of the most decisive selection as standing in front of a crossroad: building my own fashion brand or continuing to pursue ahigher level degree of international trade. Nevertheless, no matter what path I choose, understanding the importance of emotion and its authenticity; managing my emotions to reveal the proper behaviour in working with different personalities will help me improve myself, enhance teamwork efficiency and motivate others. It also brings additional opportunities for my future career.

Emotion Authenticity

"If you were a diamond, would you be on the fingers of the rich or in the drawers of the poor?"Despite of a small test, it is a turning point on the path of discovering myself. In that case. expressed my idea with my true thoughts and emotions. Personally, it would be easier to support the idea, to become the diamond in the hands of the rich, to be cherished and to be lived in the lap of luxury but in the end, I still unabled to do. The contrast between the sparkling diamond and the destitude scene has stimulated me. I found it interesting about the deepest reason how could the poor own such a luxurious item, unlike the rich who can own it anytime. From the inside, I recognized the value of the diamond to the poor was more precious than that of the rich. I feel more meaningful when living like a diamond in a drawer of the poor, to be more special and priceless, which is opposite to a diamond in the hands of the rich, in sipte of its beauty and splendid, but no more value than a trinket. However, people do have different opinions because they have different experiences in life, and that also translates into different personalities that they develop. I found it challenging to write such a distinct thing from the rest of the class. I was confusing whether I got a high score of doing this.

Then, I got a broader cognition that the score was not a matter to me. It is more important because I had the courage to express my views and my feelings. If the result was worse than my expectation, I would not be upset for the sake of all the efforts I put on. All things considered, contentment and satisfaction were my final objectives. It would be glad to choose to become shining and shimmering diamonds in the hands of the rich with the aim of getting a high score. However, I would have to ask myself the true reason for betraying my honesty. Why did I have to frame my emotions like that? What a hard situation!

As a result, I was right, at least at that time. I was the second highest grade. Surprisingly, the student who had the highest score also the same side with my opinion. It was a great encouragement, I felt to be understood, sympathized, appreciated and praised. More than that, I comprehended that being honest is facet of the morals (in-text). There is a righteousness in acting authentically. Most of all, I am proud of myself which motivated me to be optimistic and genuine. However, sincerity could be understood as a form of the authenticity but it was not totally the same with authenticity. Authenticity is a normative notion related to personal endorsement while sincerity reflects our ethics issues. According to the study completed by Morgan and Averill, there is 92% of people indicated that expressing “true feelings” taught them more about themselves, while 73% acknowledged the clarification on their values. It came to a conclusion that being authentic can coherrence the relationship between our beliefs and values, or it can transform them into a new level of emotional innovation.

From the scientific aspects, emotions are complex chemical compounds that respond to information from the brain, thereby transmitting signals to other organs and directing them to respond appropriately. On the edge of psychology, emotion is the expression of the soul and the inner motivation which drives our behaviors (in-text). Why do we laugh when we are happy, cry when we are sad, angry when we are scolded? Each of our emotions leads to a particular action. At a deeper level, our emotions indicate purpose and desire. For example, we feel embarrassed because of social acceptance and self-esteem when compared to the others, or feel guilty for not treating others the way as we want them to treat us, following the Golden Rule ethical test. Back to the story, emotional authenticity gives me a broader visibility, fair judgment, and the easier way to make the right decision. Moreover, I found it advantageous to find people who understand me and share the same side as my points of view. In work place, my superior may recognize me differently, such as daring to accept the challenge and having courages to defend my idea to the end.

Emotional Management

It reminded me about the most consequential experience I’ve ever experienced. My most lucky thing when studying abroad is to meet wonderful teachers. One of them is Jawed Muhammed, Unit Convenor of Global Business Culture that I’ve studied last semester. He is a person who can remember the names of all his students, as well as understand the strengths and weaknesses each of them. His subject covers a lot of theories, but they are really interesting when he ingeniously incorporates his broad knowledge and inspire students, which few college teachers succeed at. After all, what I admired him the most is his emotional management and professional attitude at workplace environment. Before the new semester starts, we had a warm party. He said that there was a tremendous change in his life which just occured last winter. It was only 2 weeks to finish the semester. Only two weeks to finish the semester. As a repetition, everyone started to spend all their time and efforts on the final assignments. On that day, he received bad news. His mother passed away in his hometown. Others in his family presented at her side in that moment the Death came to take her out. Only our beloved teacher had to watch his mother gradually breathed the last breath through the computer screen.

No matter how mature you are, you are still the children in the eyes of parents. This was the biggest shock that there will be nothing are able hurt you more. In that situation, I would immediately return to my hometown because it is my family. I definitely felt really hopeless, useless and despair. Especially in Asia, family values are more important than your career or even your honor. I asked him whether he had returned. He just smiled and shook his head. He told his siblings that he will definitely come back after 2 weeks more when the exam was over. His mother's body was still remained until he came to say farewell. That night, he did not sleep. Then the next morning in class, he still kindly instructed his students about the last assignment without any tear from the critical schock in the day before. He expressed that he was unable to leave his students alone. His mother dead was only his loss. He could not imagine that how many losses would the students suffered if he disappeared. The last assignment was neither about the knowledge nor score, but also an only chance for those who wanted to improve their academic record and hopes. The silent atmosphere covered our existence. Of course, his behaviour could not be evaluated form right or wrong. In my opinion, I highly appreciated his attitude because it was the most appropriate response in such a hard circumstance, obviously.

There is no word to describe how much admire I am toward him. He was the real figure for all of us. What I’ve learned from him are not only the knowledge but also the professional behaviour in workplace environment. We should be honest but mangaging our emotion is more essential. It is better to know to convey our feelings moderately in suitable situation. If I were him, returned and left my students would lead to the lack of fulfilling my obligations and how irresponsibile I am. In contrast, if my negative emotions were exploded in front of my students or my subordinates, they would worry about me instead of focusing on their studies. We have multiple roles in the society. Especially, the higher the status we hold, the more responsiblity we have. The benefits of the community are more considerable to that of the individual. We should know our responsibility and dedicate it to the community. In addition, here are some ways to manage your emotions in workplace environment in case you are unbalanced or upset:

1. Look yourself in the mirror will help you realize how triggers you perform because of your lack of emotional self – awareness. The concerns will control your emotions into pessimistic way.
2. Stay calm, breathe deep, and model behaviour to let the emotion slow down and deliberate.
3. Having your favorite drinks will help you feel familiar and comfortable.
4. Don’t let yourself get sucked in. Sadness is often accompanied by isolation and it could affect the whole workplace atmosphere.

Trying to escape negative feelings not only let yourself motivated, but also made others stop worrying for you. Although emotional management is difficult, we are still capable as long as we try our best to handle it.

Working with Different Personality

When I became an international student, the first thing I’ve learned was working with different personalities. Swinburne, in particular, and Australia, in general, is a very culturally diverse environment, with a large number of students and immigrants coming from all over the world. This has certain pros and cons, especially for those who went to another country to study, work and live for the first time like me. Understanding how to develop my strengths and face with difficulties will give me a lot of experience in making friends, finding good teammates, improving work efficiency, expanding knowledge and enhancing my interpersonal skill for my further career path.

I have been contacted with friends from distinguish 20 countries. Working with different of personalities creates a colorful picture that activates our creativity and helps us get more innovative ideas. (in- text) At the same time, it also increases the efficiency of our work because of various views on the same issue, as well as ensures we will not miss any significant point. Working with a variety of traits also helps creating a balance work environment. For example, extrovert people are very good at performing, presenting ideas and connecting others in the group, while the introvert are paying more attention to detail: such as in making outlines and careful in writing reports. Thus, there is a harmony between strengths and weaknesses.

However, I found challenges when working with different personalities, which communication issue is the most critical one. Language problem should be considered as the first element. While I am confident about my English, writing in formal and speaking as a native accent are the skill which I desire to develop further. Native teachers speak quite fast and keeping up with them made me really concentrate. Besides, there are many different accents of English due to the diversified environments and I have to get used to that. Sometimes it put me in troubles, for instance, I usually forgot the vocabulary of something in English suddenly, or I spent a lot of time expressing ideas because English is not my mother tounge. Last but not least, there will be some conflicts can be illustrated as an incident, which does not matter to one person but distorts another. One example is punctual. Often Asian students are much later than their European peers, based on their views of Language of Time in their culture. The way to improve is realizing self-conscious through cheerful cooperations and friendly attitude. It is necessary not to let the delay of personal issue influence on the collective task. In short, there are many possible methods to improve your ability to work in a diverse environment. One of the ways I find it most effective is to increase your EQ in several ways:

Practice Observing how You Feel

Sometimes, our emotions were express naturally and unconsciously. Hence, we are missing out the valuable information about the message of our emotion. The best way to understand our emotion and the way we behave is turning it into experience about a specific event, person of situation. Keep talking to ourselves how we feel, how we think in the current situation, then making comparisons will help us pat more attention to the importance of emotion.

Take Responsibility for Your Feelings and Behavior, Then Learn From Your Mistakes

Understanding and amit your fault not only illustrate your responsibly but also demonstrate your wealth of emotional flexibility. Once failures are turned to learning opportunities, it will become priceless experience, upgrading your emotional health and building strong sense of judgement.

Practice Empathizing with Yourself and Others

It is quite similar to use our experience to evaluate others’ response. If we can understand our own feelings and the way we behave will lead to an improvement in other’s behaviour as well. Empathizing others remind you that everyone has their own difficulties and know thow to heal and encourage them.

Be an Active Listener

In contrast of keep sharing our emotions, sometimes active listening can bring many benefits. Taking note and attention to what others say will open our mind to creative ideas and different decisions.

Acknowledge Suggestions and Criticism

“Indeed, an emotionally intelligent person learns to adjust their behavior based on the criticism they receive in the awakening of an apology”. Not all criticism has negative effect. Suggestions are also other’s experiences they want to show you and it may diverse your emotional intelligence.

Unfortunately, according to our country perspective and most of Asian countries, who perform well at the natural sciences such as math, physics and chemistry are considered to be truly smart. The other special intelligence of art such as drawing, acting, playing instruments or doing sport are just component talent. This is an unfair outdated view in the current time because every talent should be treated equally. In fact, there are nine different kinds of intelligence are discussed in below. As we can see, these types of intelligence can be classified into 3 groups:

• scientific intelligence: logical- mathematical, spatial, natural which can be translated as IQ (Intelligence Quotient)
• artistic intelligence: musical, linguistic, and bodily kinesthetic which is traditionally interpreted as gifts.
• communicative intelligence: interpersonal, intrapersonal and existential, which can be considered as EQ (Emotional Quotient).

EQ, also known as EI (Emotional Intelligence), demonstrates the ability of a person to understand himself as well as to understand others. Moreover, it is the ability to control emotion to adapt to the situation, such as: reducing negative emotion, stress management and bounce back from adversity. Especially in business and management, it can matter more than IQ because With IQ people choose you, but with EQ, people promote you. "Successful people are not the people with the highest IQ with the highest EQ.

Unlike IQ and gift are congenital characteristic, EQ can be achieved by educating and practicing. Actually, EQ does not oppose to IQ and vice versa, it is a wonderful collaboration. Developing both of these indicators will help ourselver more elite, superior, adaptive, accesible to build a network and able to get along with them, which drives us to success easier.

Conclusion

This is a very attractive unit because of the helpful knowledge provided which I haven’t known yet. These theories can be applied in daily life situation for better mental health. I know how to take care of my emotion and express them properly. It is also a good chance to find some strategies in management to improve my ability to work effectively, looking for friends and good teammates. The content gave me more confidence, a deeper understanding about myself and others. Currently, I know how to keep myself optimistic and motivate others to be positive. I’ve also earned valuable experiences in an enhancement on my further career path. Those discussed below are my lessons that I’ve experienced in my learning journey:

1. Sincere to myself
2. Improving my English more
3. Respect each other
4. Be friendly and kind
5. Distingushing what is worth to be considered and ignoring unnecessary problems
6. Independent and Optimistic
7. Always learn from others around me
8. Motivate and regconize myself and others.