Professional Development Week- Reflective Report

16/05/2022(Week 8) - 20/05/2022(Week 8)

Alfie Koh Chen Fong

Professional Development Week

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In Week 8, we are assigned to participate in Professional Development Week for our final year. I think this is really an interesting and exciting opportunity to learn something from people that have already worked in the industry for many years. This is really what students need to develop their understanding of the area they want to, but it is a little bit unfortunate for me because there are not many design-based workshops. But I am still able to join the workshop that can benefit my personality, financial, future and etc. I have participated in 6 workshop which are, “Financial Literacy”, “Workshop by Passion Republic”, “Best Practices and Personal Branding Strategy using LinkedIn”, workshop by Enfiniti, Mental Health & Wellness at work, as well as tips to developing your career identity. 

 At Tuesday 2pm, I attended the “Financial Literacy for Fresh Graduates" workshop which is presented by Mr Fairuz Izman. At the beginning of the workshop, Mr Fairuz ask us to fill in the risk tolerance quiz, he said that it is important to know our risk tolerance quiz before we start our investment journey. I completed the quiz and it showed that I am a moderate person that always has a backup and won’t invest too much at once to get a high result. I do assume that I am this kind of person since I am afraid to lose everything in a moment. It will be better for me to gain my money slowly and stably. During the workshop, Mr Fairuz mentioned that there are “Do” and “Don’t” of investment. The first “Do” is to do the investment preparation. We need to conduct a self-assessment to know how much extra money we have, and we have to create emergency funds starting from now. Next is to know our risk tolerance, as well as never sacrifice our sleep to worry when we lost money. I do agree with this, we will face a lot of struggles in our life, but I will keep moving instead of being negative. Last but not least is to develop our investment strategy, he mentioned that everyone has a different strategy, so we just need to learn slowly and find the strategy that is best for us.

The second “Do” is to tell your money where to go, which means we need to distribute our salary by following specific rules like 50% on needs like rent, car payment, insurance, 30& on wants: vacation, dining out, streaming service and 20% on financial goal. But Mr Fairuz thinks it is better for a fresh graduate student like us to follow the 0 budget rule first. So basically we have to realize our expenses first, assign the amount to these expenses and make sure your money goes to these expenses, so it is more flexible. We need to track our expenses, when income, habits start to change. It is recommended to use the money lover app, MAE app, spendee app to manage our finances.

Mr Fairuz also advised us to normalize money talk, we can always communicate with our partner about our life goals. He said it is important, to be honest with your couple, and know their debts because we don't want these to affect our marriage and life. He also shared with us some tips to buy a car and a home. He said if we want to buy a car, we need to make sure the instalment is less than 20% of our salary. The car price within the annual salary is suitable and we consider a second-hand model so it is cheaper. If we want to buy a home, we don't spend more than 30% of our salaries, at the same time we need to prepare a 15% down payment for the cost of furniture. Always do research before buying the house.

After that, Mr Fairuz shared with us the “Don’t”. Which are stop spending more than you earn,  stop thinking more cash brings happiness, stop making it hard to save, impatience, and unwise use of credit cards. For example,  when we use credit cards to pay Mcdonald's through the ordering machine, the bank will take the transaction fee. So it is better don't pay using a credit card in this case. He advised us we should use extra money to learn investment if you are fresh graduate, try to understand what we need to do first. Through this workshop, I do have open my mind for financial management, there is a lot of good advise that I can always implement during my life.

Moving on to the next workshop which is by Passion Republic at 3.30pm. I am really excited to gain my knowledge from an art-based company. The presenter, Mr Lum Siew Hong shared about what they always do when doring concept art. First they always look for research from real life, and moving on to sketch, draw, polish. After that they only start to scaling, add the depth and visual element. He introduced us about story images as well, which is the key frame of a scene. It is different with storyboard as story images is just a key moment scene. To be an concept artist, he strongly advised us to study like a freak. I totally agree with this as I find there is so many things to learn if we wanted to draw something from 0-100. Other than imagination, looking for reference and study it is definitely a right choice. Second thing is we need to have a strong mental because the process is really struggling. Third things is do research and references, for example we can take photo during the travel, think about the story and angle, storytelling is an important skill for concept artist so always try to do and practice. As a lead concept artist, he shared us some of his experience. Communication is important, we need to communicate and believe in our team, and know how to prioritize the task, understand which is the most urgent task. He advised when you are a newbie, do improve your skills and learn everything from everywhere. When your are a senior, be proficient in foundation, learn advance stuff and a bit of leadership skill. And when you are a leader, you have to learn more leadership skill, people management, art directing skills and how to give feedback to your colleagues. This is really an interesting workshop for me as I want to be an illustrator, it kinda give me some idea to improve myself in the future.

My third workshop is about using LinkedIn to bulid our personal branding strategy. I know that LinkedIn is a professional social media that people use for searching jobs, but I never tried it before cause I think it is just for after graduated. But I think this workshop can give me better understanding on it for my future. The presenter mentioned that, brand is a promise to people around you, which means brand is to let people know what they can expect from you, and it is a reason that they choose you to work with. Brand can show our skills, network, information and etc. By using LinkedIn we can mentioned what we want in the future as well, like our values and goals. We need to keep in mind that profile is for everyone to interact with us, and a good profile photo will increase the oppurtunity to get job in LinkedIn. Other than that, we are advised to use first narrative to describe, like “I” and “Me”. Basically, one to two sentences about us, three to five sentences about skills, experiences and key passions. Lastly is to use 1-2 sentences to talk about future goals and how other people can engage with us. I think this is really a great advice for me as I am going to graduate this year, through LinkedIn I can increase my oppurtunity.

The fourth workshop is all about creativity. In the begining of the workshop, the presenter pointed out that creativity is something to make us unique, it is a skill not only for art-based people. It can’t be replace by technology and AI becasue it involve using imagination, which is the ability to form pictures in the mind and the ability or action of forming new ideas, images concepts of external objects not present to the senses. Here are some advices given for business acumen, having good judgement, having ability to make quick decision and understand business idea. And to be a good learder, we should have clear communication, power of influence, inspiration and persuade. There are a lot of things to be a good leader, but I assume these two things are the most important.

The fifth workshop is about the tips to develop a career identity. To define career identity, there are three parts, motivation, competencies and interests. Motivation is what gets you from start to finish. It is also known as "Drive". Motivation also leads to hard work + wisdom. There are some examples of motivations like travel experience, knowledge gain, great culture, money gain, and career opportunities. Competencies mean what you are great at doing. We don't need to like your competencies, but it will help your career if you can learn to love it. Competency is what allows you to build your skills in your interest. And interests could be hobbies, side projects, parents' business, etc. It is something you feel excited to learn. The presenter said It is ok if we study a course that is not our interest. Why do we need to have a strong career identity It becomes a professional differentiator, It becomes direction and roadmap, It becomes purpose and motivation, and It becomes career value shaping. I think compare to the LinkedIn workshop, this workshop gives more specific points on the career identity itself, it actually feels like some idea for me to start a business in the future.

The last workshop is “Mental Health & Wellness at work” from Top Glove. I do think that having a healthy mental is important to everyone, especially in this generation, there is a lot of high pressure we will face in the future. Ms Kimberly clarifies that long stress will lead to illnesses, even though stress is everywhere but we can manage it. There is actually a symptoms that happens in our bodies during stress, it is called fight or flight response. And how can we manage stress, there are 3A’s which are awareness, analyze and apply. Awareness can classify to emotional symptoms of stress, physical symptoms of stress, cognitive symptoms of stress, behavioural symptoms of stress. Analyze means we need to identify the cause and review your lifestyle. Apply means the action or techniques we can implement, which including move around, connecting and bonding with others, relaxing and having fun. When are we most vulnerable to stress are when not getting enough sleep, not having a network of support as well as experiencing a major life change like the death of a loved one, or even having a marriage. In conclusion, not all stresses are bad, stress is everywhere but there is an effective way to manage your stress by using 3A’s.

Overall, this is a really interesting week to experience different workshops that can benefit me in terms of financial, mental heal, identity, and even design. But I think it will be good to have this kind of activity for every year of uni-life. Really appreciate that Taylor’s providing this PDW week for students.