I think I have made progress over the semester as to how I have approached my learning, but I have identified things I still need to work on. Overall, I have found the course very different to the marketing subjects I've done before, which tended towards the rote-learn from the textbook formula. I found that it was refreshing to be treated as more independent students and to be encouraged to use different resources. Areas that I think I improved:
From my experience in the simulation as one of the group that Marion dubbed the "Flower Girls", I have learnt that when things don't go your way, the game can turn around quickly if you put a lot of effort into it and stay optimistic. Although this was hard during the initial rounds, I'm glad we learned a lot from it and improved instead of floundering.
I improved my research skills from the Amazon audit. Instead of just using journal databases similar to what I did in the past, I used different types of references and search techniques.
I've realised that further reading can be interesting! I especially found that articles in B & T and AdNews were interesting and relevant.
In terms of organisation, I completed tasks and assessments without stress and sometimes well in advance of the deadline. I think a lot of this was due to my short-term goal planning, which I found very useful. It made me think more about what I needed to do, and by putting it on paper, my tasks seemed a lot clearer.
I have increased my self-awareness of my work attitudes and my organisation from doing the Personal plan. What I found most beneficial was that it gave me time to think about what I was trying to achieve, and I could compare that to what I was actually doing. A lot of the time we tend to just do things without thinking about them so I found the personal plan and the Capsim reflection very beneficial.
What I think I could improve on:
I could have been more self-aware and stuck to the reading tasks in the short term goals section negotiated personal plan. Specifically, I did not do the supplementary textbook reading each week, and this may have hindered my consolidation of material. Indeed, although I understood the typologies and models, I sometimes seemed to have trouble recalling the details.
Although I learnt a lot about Capstone, more importantly I learnt a lot about group work dynamics, which I found was surprising given I have done group work throughout my degree. I've realised that although collaboration is useful, sometimes too many cooks spoil the broth, and there were huge inefficiencies in how we managed our Capstone decisions among 5 people. Indeed, because we were not making much progress in our meetings, our meetings became quite stressful and less enjoyable. In future I will stop and take time to think about the best way to approach group work, instead of continuing with ways that I know have been successful in the past for groups of 3-4, or for our previous simulation in session one. Adapting to changes has been constantly emphasised throughout the course and I didn't realise until now that it applied so well to our approach to Capstone group work. I think that what I learnt from this is valuable to the way I will approach group work and corporate team work in the future.
To summarise, one of the most important things I have gained from this course is a huge amount of self-awareness, self-monitoring and the ability to take a step back before starting things. I have also learnt that adapting to change isn't something that should necessarily apply to big changes such as external impacts to a company; change can be there in the little things as well in daily life, and it is each individual's job to look out for them before it is too late.
