This page is about my professional identity. My career has never shared a common theme like technology, finance or research, but it always involved one thing - teamwork. I enjoy being around other people and collaboration is something that both me and the team always benefit from. Having gone through debating competitions and models of the American Congress and the United Nations, I learned how to effectively communicate with others and how to work together to achieve common goals. I learned how to rely on the team to do something, which is very valuable to me and it creates the opportunity to learn from each other in the process.
When I joined student societies, I found new like-minded people who enjoy working in fast environments. This kept me motivated to be as productive as possible. It also taught me how to combine working, studying and organising events together, and how to effectively manage my time and plan ahead. I like helping others and when I worked in student halls, I pursued the chance to support fellow students and contribute to a friendly and welcoming environment. At the same time, solving various issues taught me how to work resourcefully and creatively, and leading with two junior colleagues required responsibility and leadership. Another necessary part of this job was to know how to provide and, perhaps even more importantly, receive feedback from colleagues. |
Senior Living Support Assistant at Murano Street Student VillageAt Murano we worked in groups of three - two Living Support Assistants and one Senior Assistant. Before I was promoted to be a Senior Living Support Assistant, I had been working as a novice under the guidance of my senior colleagues. Progressively, as I learned how to handle different situations, I was allowed to operate on my own without the presence of the Senior. In any case, the responsibility for anything that happened during the shift rested entirely on the Senior. Our team dealt with any possible issues that students may have had, ranging from broken kitchen stoves to noise complaints and mental health problems. I aspired to be promoted and in order to achieve that, I had to prove to my colleagues that I was responsible, confident, creative, assertive, conscious and calm in every situation. Although I had one year's experience at the time, I still was not sure that I could handle every situation in accordance with every single policy and contract in place. Furthermore, most of my junior co-workers were aspiring for the same promotion and spaces were limited. This put me under a lot of pressure. At the beginning, with everything I did I had the certainty that if anything went wrong, the senior colleague would take over and correct the situation. Now it was up to me to prove I was ready to do that for my colleagues. In order to overcome the doubts that I had about myself, I started asking seniors on shift if I could handle all situations and proactively asked them for feedback on my job. Although it was hard to receive negative feedback, I realised that hearing it was the only way to move forward. I started taking notes during work to write down challenging issues and then re-reading them in order to learn effectively. Using these, I was able to pinpoint my uncertainties. I practiced scenarios in my free time to imagine how I should act in unfamiliar situations and asked my supervisor for advice when I was unsure. Finally, before an interview for the promotion, I have familiarised myself with more than 120 pages of regulations and policies which helped me become self-assured in my decisions. Despite being unsure at the beginning and the fact that my co-workers had one extra year of experience, I managed to build up my confidence in the workplace and I have been promoted. The most important thing that I had to learn was how to keep positive attitude when I receive negative feedback and learn from my mistakes. This job taught me how to keep my composure at any moment and how to handle difficult situations responsibly without unnecessary emotions. President of the Glasgow University Entrepreneurship Society,Having been involved in GUES during first year as a PR Coordinator, I applied for the position of President of the society. I have shown a clear and achievable vision to the voters and I have been elected President. The main aim of the society is to promote entrepreneurship at the University and inspire people to pursue entrepreneurship to bring their own ideas to life. Coming from an entrepreneurial family, I have witnessed how business works first-hand and I wanted to share this experience with others.
Becoming the President of the society meant that I had to come up with a strategy and a clear plan for the upcoming year. I had to decide which events from the previous years we wanted to repeat and which we wanted to eliminate. I set up a meeting with the new board and using my communication skills, I guided a three hour long discussion to create a calendar of events. Leading the society meant that I had to coordinate people's roles to work effectively as a team. Immediately after taking the office, I wanted to make communication within the board more effective. Therefore I backed up all of the society's accounts and reorganised its cloud storage to allow easier access to its files and created a work chat to discuss society matters in one place. We have agreed on organising a competition for our members for which I had to come up with a proposal to ask for school's funding. I made a presentation to the Business School office and we agreed on the specifics of how the event would be carried out.
Events Assistant at Adam Smith Economics SocietyAdam Smith Economics Society (ASES) is one of the biggest societies at the University of Glasgow, which regularly organises events for more than 100 students. I joined ASES in my first year and became the Events Assistant charged with helping the Events Coordinator when organising events, booking rooms and communicating with venues. I had the chance to be fully responsible for organising the Christmas Ball, which involved coordinating board members and working together to prepare every detail and ensure smooth running of the evening. Because this was the first time the Society organised a ball for almost one hundred guests, this was a great challenge in terms of planning.
Since I had about one month to prepare every detail of the event, I firstly met with our team and planned a list of things that needed to be done. In the beginning, I coordinated a meeting with the venue manager to set up a time plan and lay out the table arrangement. Having done this, we were ready to start putting all pieces of the puzzle together. Using my organisational skills, I delegated several tasks to the members of the team and acting together with the president of the society, I monitored the progress of the preparations. Because I had no experience with organising such a big event, I have come across a major issue when the president required me to make a seating plan according to the guests' preferences. With only one week left before the event, I used my research skills and independently came up with a solution using an online poll platform. This idea allowed me to create a table plan tailored to incorporate everyone's preferences. I then communicated with the venue manager to prepare name tags and a table map so it would be clear to everyone where is their seat. My careful planning and constant effort led to a very successful event. At the end of the year, I ran to become the new Events Coordinator and because of my active involvement in the society, positive approach, and enthusiasm, I was elected to the position. For me, the promotion has been a great achievement, which also served me as a feedback on my work. |