As I reflect on this semester’s Professional Development Strategies course, I spent a lot of time reflecting on my strengths and weaknesses, current and future professional aspirations, and how to use the information I’ve learned in this class to address these areas. The course began by getting to know our classmates, and then it progressed to getting to know one’s self in great detail. While some might think, “I know everything there is about me because I’m me,” I realized there was so much I needed to improve on as a person and employee.
In the first few weeks of the course, my main takeaway was how important it is to have a passion and use it in my career. I’m most passionate about ensuring everyone has complete control of their finances, which consists of consistently staying within budget, saving, and investing for retirement. With the standard of living in the US getting more expensive each year, it gets more difficult to avoid going into debt (i.e., credit cards, loans). When I’m not working as an Accountant or doing school work, I and three others are developing a shopping list/budgeting mobile app called Shopden. Our launch date isn’t until the end of this summer, and we still have a lot to do (i.e., redesigning Shopden’s website, growing its social media presence, and developing the mobile app). Still, we’re all driven to do excellent work since we’re passionate about the problems Shopden addresses. Shopping lists significantly reduce impulse purchases, the #1 reason people overspend on their shopping trips. So, while budgeting apps show you how much you’re currently spending, these apps aren’t actively structuring how you carry out your shopping trips. While there are shopping list apps and budgeting apps, there isn’t a single app that combines these two features. I’m able to integrate my interest in personal finance into this app.
Towards the middle of the course, we were introduced to the benefits of LinkedIn and Handshake, as these are important in career development. It’s essential to display relevant skills and experience to job recruiters and have a finalized resume for hiring managers. In addition to online networking, I have made more of an effort to socialize and get to know my coworkers and bosses over these past few months. I focused more of my first year as an employee on ensuring that I understood how to complete my tasks and not so much on building relationships with the people I work with. Therefore, my goal is to have a solid relationship with everyone in the Accounting department, as this will contribute to my professional growth as an employee and my personal development as a human being.
During the last month of the course, we were expected to interview someone in our industry, which was perfect for me. My immediate boss (Assistant Controller) is taking a 6-week vacation this summer. As a result, she has been trying to find someone interested in filling in for her when she’s gone. While I’d been doing much of her work before the interview, I still wasn’t completely sure what else she did and how difficult it was. After interviewing her, I was shocked by how similar her responsibilities were to mine. When I stated that I was confident in filling in for her when she was on vacation, she agreed and was confident in my ability. If it wasn’t for this assignment, I probably wouldn’t have been asked to do these tasks!
To conclude, my experience as a student in Professional Development Strategies has made me a more well-rounded employee at my company. By ensuring my profiles on LinkedIn and Handshake were optimized, I’m now able to reach out to like-minded individuals about potential job opportunities in the future. In addition, I better understand the job I’d like to have in the near future.
Written by Mikael La Ferla
Mikael La Ferla 