Feedback on my Portfolio
Christian
Nate's thoughts on academic research after our academic careers panel discussion on the 11th of August really resonated with me. His takeaway from the experience being the importance of personal joy and motivation for your PhD research project was also a takeaway that I had.
Additionally, his reflection on this takeaway and how he is much more passionate about developing software and exploring technologies was identical to my thought process. I had these same thoughts and feelings but Nate articulated it really well in his blog post. These discussions are very relevant for us Advanced Science students as it feels like we are being pulled taut in the direction of both research and industry. Having someone express the same ideas that I have in regards to leaning more towards the industry is extremely comforting. I would have loved to hear more about what a PhD would mean to him as he says he has considered thoughts such as "it would be cool to do a PhD" or "I would like to be Dr. Brown someday", but that may be too personal. He also commented on another takeaway he had – research skills being relevant in all stages of one's career.
It would have been great to learn of any particular skills he values or of any skills he plans to work on to help him succeed in the future. In conclusion, I deeply connected to Nate's takeaways from the academic careers panel discussion. He did a great job reflecting on his thoughts and it left me wishing he elaborated further on the more personal aspects of his takeaways.
Response
Thank you, Christian, for giving such a personal response to my work, and I'm glad to hear that I'm not alone in my thoughts regarding academic research and finding research projects.
Having read through Christian's posts, where he focuses a lot on the skills that he's learnt and values from the project work he's conducted this year, I completely agree that I could dig deeper into those topics. I read that he used a feedback model to structure his responses which I started to use but failed to continue to do throughout the year, so I will commit to using a reflection framework for my journalling going forward.
Jack Lanciano
Hey Nate, I like that you've taken the initiative to build your own website along with a custom domain. It's a great way to showcase the work you're doing and it's inspired me to create my own eventually.
I relate to your thoughts about postgraduate studies. I've also considered postgraduate study but decided that I would prefer to learn on the job. Having worked with you on the Omni Biotech project, I can vouch for your Initiative and Enterprise skills. You quickly learned where I was up to on the pipeline and you were able to quickly expand the planned pipeline to include all of the mobile application, verification with AWS and offline/cloud database syncing. You helped solidify my "pipeline pieces" into the full pipeline. Also, regarding teamwork, I enjoyed working with you on this project.
While our time together was short, I found myself more motivated to work on the project since you joined. You are knowledgeable, friendly and supportive; these qualities make up good teamwork skills to me! All the best with the rest of your project with Omni Biotech, I look forward to seeing the continued development of the pipeline!
Response
Jack, thank you for your in-depth review of my work and your kind words about our time together at Omni. I'm glad to have inspired you to create your own site, and I'd be happy to help you with advice if you need a hand setting up your domain. I definitely believe our work was a team effort, as I didn't have a great understanding of the AWS pipeline without your help.
Evie Innes
In reference to my post "Learning to Learn with Generative AI".
This is a really interesting piece to read! It clearly coveys how your perspective and attitude towards freely available generative AI, particularly for use in education, has changed over the year. You bring to light some very interesting points, particularly about how studying is gaining knowledge, and if you get something else to do the work for you, are you actually gaining that knowledge? I am quite excited to see where your project has ended up! My only critique is to edit the final paragraph to make it a little more coherent, otherwise it is great!
Response
Thank you, Evie, for taking the time to review some of my work and I'm glad that my post resonated so deeply with you. I found putting together this presentation and reflecting upon it a really valuable experience, and I'm glad that my main message was easily perceived. I agree my conclusion didn't finish as strongly as the rest of my post, which should really drive home my message.
Jaxson Brown
Nate's reflective and educational journal entries were very inspiring and highlighted the importance of self-improvement at university, and also within the workforce.
Nate has described various obstacles he faced throughout the year, such as increased workloads, collaborative work issues, and post-grad study decisions. With every obstacle, Nate described how he solved the issue as well as how he wishes to improve and grow from the experience. This positive reflection was incredibly motivating, and it was a reminder to me that not all stressful and challenging experiences are bad; there are priceless lessons to be learnt from them all. There were a few takeaways from his reflections that I will definitely remember within my own studies.
Whilst many of Nates reflections were of high quality, I would've liked to hear more about his project for NPSC. His project outline seemed very interesting, and I would've liked to get a better grasp of how he managed his project and if there were any points-of-interest/obstacles during his research and development specific to his project.
Response
Jaxson, thank you for taking the time to review my portfolio. I really appreciate your comments and I'm glad that it's had an uplifting effect on you. I feel like it's been a difficult year and I mostly feel down about it, but to know my experiences can have a positive impact on others it's really touching and motivating.
I haven't enjoyed working on my project much and I believe that's probably why I've shied away from reflecting upon it in my journal, but I agree with your criticism and will definitely improve upon this next year by making monthly updates on my project.