Reflection on this trimester

Having finally completed my last exam for the trimester (my Japanese written exam for Japanese 1A), I felt it would be quite appropriate to reflect a little on my experience of the past four months, especially as I really feel like I have grown in leaps and bounds in so many ways – in all aspects of commitment, certainty, and even a measure of clarity, which is quite exciting to me.

Now, this was my first trimester since I commenced my Diploma of Languages in Japanese. So my study-load increased from three courses a trimester to five! These were the courses that I studied:

1. Legal Issues for Managers
2. Political Leadership
3. Organisational Behaviour
4. Japanese 1A
5. Japanese Society & Pop Culture

Obviously, I learned a lot of things about all of the above subjects. Legal Issues and Organisational Behaviour in particular deeply enthused me in terms of content, as well as their particular assessment tasks – ILAC Hypotheticals for Legal Issues and the Personal Reflection essay, Group Presentations, and Topic Evaluations. However, what has been the most powerful awareness for me is that throughout the process of learning what has been explicitly taught to me in terms of content, I have actually learned so many things about the process of learning and different ways that I learn and organize myself in terms of my study (a kind of “meta-learning,” learning about learning). There are things that I learned on this deeper level that I know will transform my future studies. I feel, honestly, as if I have transcended the level where I have been at as a student so far, and it can only go up from here.

Legal Issues was a major exercise in the organisation of notes! It was, first of all, my first Law subject, and secondly, its final exam was my first open-book exam, where you would take your marked-up textbook and notes into the exam as a reference. I am especially indebted to the input I received through our P.A.S.S. (Peer-Assisted Study Sessions) that I attended this trimester. I don’t think I would ever have dreamed of organizing my notes through spreadsheets – which allowed rapid access to volumes of information, such as sections of legislation and cases, also allowing it to be laid out so that all of that information could be rapidly connected.

The major assessment piece for the course was an ILAC (Issue-Law-Application-Conclusion) Hypothetical, related to Corporations Law, in which we were given a scenario and we were required to extract what legal issues were involved, lay out the Law (in this case, what sections of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth) were relevant, as well as related case law to help interpret it. Then we wrote an essay for the Application, going succinctly but in a detailed way through the Law and applying all its principles to the situation. Finally, we write a Conclusion which answers the Issues (which originally were written up as questions) before suggesting the Remedies that were likely to be applied by whichever relevant court. I achieved 30/30 for this assignment, and it can be found in my Portfolio.

Then the final exam for the course contained seven short-answer questions related to Australian Consumer Law (ACL), Corporations Law, Agency (in particular the Partnership Act), Employment Law and Anti-Discrimination Law, and two ILAC Hypotheticals – one related to Agency and the other to Anti-Discrimination (Anti-Discrimination Act 1991 (Qld) (QADA)). It was a serious exam, two hours long, and a load of writing. Many of my close friends in the course struggled to complete it in the time allotted. I pushed myself hard and managed to finish writing with four minutes to spare! It was the first exam in my whole year and a half at University so far that I was actually required to sit there while all the papers were collected and accounted for! I achieved 48.5 out of 50 – bringing my final result to 98.5/100!

Organisational Behaviour was a great course too! It is a part of my HRM Major, but whereas HRM Principles was more focused on the functions of HR (recruitment and selection, training and development, performance management, etc.), Organisational Behaviour was more theoretically based – things such as Personality, Emotions and Moods, Values, Stress & Well-being, Motivation, Leadership, Power and Politics, Organisational Culture and Organisational Change. Its main assessment tasks were the Personal Reflection essay, that I wrote regarding Emotional Intelligence and its impact in the workplace. I didn’t do as well as I could have (this is probably my first reflection piece) but I made up for the marks lost in the reflection aspect with marks gained in terms of depth of research and understanding of the theory. I still felt that I did get so much out of the task, and really want to take the time to dig into the research more on a personal level. I got 16/20 for that.

Another really neat element of the assessment for OB was a group presentation, and topic evaluations written about the topics that we were not presenting ourselves. My team’s case study was related to Power & Politics and involved looking at the misuse of power in the WorldCom case and consider recommendations for how such a situation could be avoided. I could probably write a whole other post to reflect on that task (as I did actually as one of the questions in the final exam was to explain the Team Effectiveness Model, using examples from my experience in the group presentation, and through that, consider what takeaways I gained through the experience). Also, the topic evaluations were questions based on the case studies and areas that the group was covering – Motivation, Leadership, Conflict & Negotiation and Organisational Culture. I really learned so much through my group experience, especially in terms of communication and organization. I really appreciated the structure that the required “group contract” gave to the exercise, where from the very beginning we had to consider what tasks and roles each member would fulfill, as well as a schedule of meetings and a rough outline of the agenda we would follow. Also, through the experience, we really built friendships and a climate of trust was a major contributing factor to our team’s effectiveness. We achieved 24.75 out of 30, which I was pretty encouraged for.

Now aside from the P.A.S.S. sessions, I was particularly encouraged to have formed with some of my friends in Legal Issues a study group. This was what I ended up dubbing the “Winner’s Club”! It was so inspiring, and once again, I really developed a strong connection and friendship with my fellow “winners”. It was this that inspired me to want to work to establish a “Winner’s Club Hub” for Griffith Business Students. I want to see that spirit of friendship and collaborative learning be magnified. I’ll be looking too to apply to be a future P.A.S.S. Leader too. So that will be awesome.

As far as clarity too, I was encouraged to enroll in the Employment Law course next year. I’m doing the Negotiation course next trimester, which was on the recommendation of a lecturer/tutor (who is like an unofficial ‘mentor’ to me – really appreciate him). When I looked at the enrollment page, I realized that both of these subjects are actually under the Employment Relations Major. So I’ve decided that instead of continuing with my Politics & Public Policy Major, which was interesting on a certain level, that I switched now to my Double-Major in HRM and Employment Relations. Also in the coming months, I’ll be involved with the Griffith BusinessPLUS Program’s Industry Mentoring Program. I’ll be meeting up with my industry mentor in the coming week for my first face-to-face meeting. His role is People & Performance Manager at Corrs Chambers Westgarth, an independent law firm. So I’m really excited to see what the outcome will be with that.

I’m also currently enrolled next trimester for:

1. Negotiation
2. Management Employee Relations
3. Business Ethics & Corporate Governance
4. Digital & Social Media Marketing
5. Japanese 1B

So now I’ve got two weeks to break, and in my second week, I’ll be at the Mid-Year Camp with Gospel Students Griffith. The theme this year is Freedom. So looking forward to coming back, refreshed and renewed in my vision for another four months of increase.