{"version":"1.0","provider_url":"https:\/\/warpwire.duke.edu","provider_name":"Warpwire","is_public":true,"duration":0,"has_caption":false,"views":0,"upload_date":"2019-04-23T20:17:25+00:00","description":"What do Blue Devils and vampires have in common? \r\nNo reflection?\r\nAs you make the transition from high school into college, and especially as college goes on, the importance of reflection is going to become apparent because decisions are going to be more important and a lot more in your hands. So what does it mean to reflect? \r\n\r\nTranscript:\r\nMy name is Nathan Wilson, assistant director with the Duke University Career Center, and you\u2019re listening to Zoom Out, the Career Center Podcast. What do Blue Devils and vampires have in common? They have no reflection.I don\u2019t mean that in an accusatoryway, but a lot of the time it\u2019s true. To get into Duke, you had to do a lot. The high school business model essentially was to overload on activities and organizations \u2013everything you can possibly do, it\u2019s just saturation. Arguably, it was quantity over quality. But the thing is, when you\u2019re that busy, do you have time or even know how to reflect on the experiences that you\u2019re engaging in? As you make the transition from high school into college, and especially as college goes on, the importance of reflection is going to become apparent because decisions are going to be more important and a lot more in your hands.So what does it mean to reflect? I think there are kind of two different ways that you can explain this based on the way your mind works, and so I can kind of talk you through the two ways I look at it when you\u2019re really trying to figure out what the heck it means.If you\u2019re more of a humanities person or more of a creative type \u2013not so much of the scientific orientation \u2013you can think of reflection as something that\u2019s more like philosophizing, or in more of a philosophical sense: \u201cwho am I and who do I want to become? What do I want out of life? What\u2019s my purpose? What\u2019s my relationship to my community and to others around me?\u201d Those are hard questions \u2013hard questions to ask of yourself. I think a lot of that comes back to values because that\u2019s the scary thing: \u201cWho am I?\u201d That\u2019s a loaded question. If you use values, it gives you a concrete means to evaluate your own life and the decisions youmake and what you\u2019re doing.Forbes.com had an article a few years back that talked about the importance of reflection for college students. One of the big things they talked about was that this is a time really to explore and to learn about yourself and,moreover, to discover yourself. You can\u2019t really do that unless you\u2019re taking time to think about what it is you\u2019re doing and being intentional about the decisions you make. A lot of undergraduates, as the article says, have what they call an \u201cinstrumentalist\u201d view of college. That it\u2019s completely a means to prepare for a career and there is some truth to that, but your career fits into your life and not the other way around for most people. So career should coincide with the big life goals that you have for yourself. These may include starting a family or traveling, or it could be any number of things...giving back to your community. Maybe you want to start a nonprofit but that\u2019s not going to be your means for income right off the bat. There are any number of things you could be doing but you have to think about what it is that will give you the most satisfaction in life, and that not always directly career-related.There were a couple of programs that this article mentions, one of them was the Stanford Reflections program. They talked about an exercise they did where it was all \r\nabout values. In one of the sessions, students were given 10 values such as success, joy, wisdom, love, and they were given an opportunity to put in their own values in addition to the ones that they were provided. They start with ten, then they have to narrow it down to eight, and then to five, and then to three, and then down to two. Then they have a week to think about it and then come back to discuss. It turned out that a lot of the students came back that next session having changed both of their two core values. It takes some deep thought, but values do give you a lens through which you can evaluate the things that you do. Now, if you\u2019re more of a scientifically-oriented person, or maybe more of a \u201ctype A\u201d person, you\u2019re more logical and linear in your thinking, you can think of reflection as more of, basically a means of assessment. What are my goals? What are my interests? What are the timelines for achieving the goals that I\u2019ve set for myself? Most importantly, I would say \u201cwhat if I don\u2019t achieve these goals and what does that mean?\u201d Imagine that your week\u2019s itinerary looks like this:Monday \u2013dig 15 holesTuesday \u2013dig 15 holesWednesday \u2013dig 15 holesThursday \u2013dig 15 holesFriday \u2013fill 60 holesYou might be killin\u2019 it! You might be doing it in record time and you\u2019re getting the job done! Okay, but \u201cgetting it done\u201d versus achieving something can be two different things. You\u2019ve got to zoom out and think about the big picture. What is it that I\u2019m trying to accomplish? When you set goals, they should be steps in a staircase, but where does that staircase lead? If it\u2019s four steps up and four steps down, are you ever getting anywhere?You need a means to evaluate what it is in that, big picture, you're trying to achieve? This isn't something that you but you have to do alone. Ask for feedback. A question I really like to ask students is, \u201cwhat are three words or even six words that you would use to describe yourself?\u201d And then Ilike to follow up with, \u201cwhat are three words that your friends would use to describe you or your family or your coworkers or current or previous supervisors?\u201d It\u2019s really interesting to see how those all line up because a lot of times they are very different. It can be scary to ask for feedback because it's not always going to be positive, but it gives you something that you can learn from and grow. Most people love getting positive feedback but negative feedback is arguably more important because how do you know how to get better? There's always room to grow and there are always things to learn and so asking those other people might be really enlightening to you. Reflection isn't something that needs to be so nebulous and it's not always easy, if I am being completely honest, right? When you really look inward you're going to see, hopefully, a lot of good but you might also discover some kind of painful truths. That's okay... No weakness is set in stone necessarily. I mean you can work on any of the \r\nstuff but you have to know what it is first. And in looking at the decisions you make you have to have some means for evaluating whether that was a success or not. I think Duke students are very guilty of this. Sometimes, you get so overwhelmed with the number of responsibilities you have that you never have time to stop and think, \u201cIs this what I want to be doing? Is this the best way to achieve these things? What's the endgame?\u201dDuke students are not blood-sucking monsters, but if you don't have reflection, you're going through life blindly. Going back to the digging a hole example, you might be doing a lot that doesn't necessarily mean you're achieving a lot. The empowering thing of it all is that you have control of what you want to do. It can be scary, especially if you're here early on in your transitioning from adolescence into adulthood. What should be empowering is this idea that you have a lot more freedom to make decisions. That can be scary if you\u2019ve never been in that position before and that's why having some means for reflecting could make all the difference. This way, years down the road, you don't look back and think-I was just floating along... I was just on the river... I didn't actually establish my destination. As I talk about in another episode, if you don't take the time to figure out what you want out of life it\u2019s not as if you're going to get nothing. You're going to get something, so take the time to think about these things. Ask these questions. Talk to folks. You can come talk to us at the career center, friends, family, anyone in your life. It's important whose judgment and whose opinions you value. It\u2019s worth it.Thank you for listening. We\u2019ll catch you on the next episode of Zoom Out \u2013The Career Center Podcast.","author_name":"Sandhya Pakala","html":"\u003Ciframe width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/warpwire.duke.edu\/w\/gZgCAA\/\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media; camera; microphone; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E","height":360,"width":640,"thumbnail_height":360,"thumbnail_width":640,"url":"https:\/\/warpwire.duke.edu\/w\/gZgCAA\/","type":"video","title":"Don't Be Like a Vampire","thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/warpwire.duke.edu\/img\/140620F7-FDE9-47A5-88A2-1ECD0FA82B23\/00EEAAD6-D0ED-4D9C-AC96-8639DB74E510\/large\/"}