Emily Song

Feb. 20, 2024

Core Competencies
Personal Awareness & Responsibility

Strengths:

1. I am personally responsible, self-motivated, and can advocate for myself.

I take ownership of my actions and choices; it is the responsibility of being accountable for my behavior
and the consequences that come with it. Even when faced with challenging obstacles, my self-
motivation pursues my goals while maintaining focus with determination. If I want something, I am
aware I need to work for it. My determination helps me grasp onto my goals. An example of this is
finding a job. Applying online was not beneficial for me so I travelled by bus and foot to every place I
could go to, because I did not want to disturb anyone for a ride. My hard work was proven when I got an
offer at a cafe in two weeks. When required for myself to communicate my thoughts and feelings, I
speak up for my needs, wants, and rights. Overall, I know what is required for myself and I am able to
provide it with a hard work ethic. If I am aware of my studying habits decreasing, I push myself to focus
harder by limiting procrastination because it is my responsibility to keep my grades up. I am constantly
in a battle with myself every day and I try to be the best version I can.

2. I take personal responsibility for my choices and actions.

This demonstrates my maturity and awareness of the impact my actions have on myself and others. This
important characteristic engages in the sense of ownership and a willingness to learn and grow from
experiences. An example of this would be if I spent the day outside, thus I would then stay up longer to
study and prepare myself for the next day. A choice was made by individual will, and consequences must
come from it. This consequence of going outside with friends will partake in shortening my sleep
schedule. My choices will affect the future decisions I decide to participate in. I claimed I wanted
ownership of my cat, so I must be responsible and prove I am the owner by cleaning him, cleaning the
litter box, brushing his teeth/hair, playing with him, and more responsibilities that come within a pet
owner. Brushing off my responsibilities to others irritates me because I want to be perfect in my purpose
that I decided to do.

Weakness:

1. I understand my decisions and actions can affect me.

I am aware of my struggles with deciding to make wise choices. I understand and take accountability for
it, however I commit to actions that are not beneficial to me in the future. Occasionally, I get tired from
spending the day at school and work, so I decide to take a nap. This affects me negatively because it
shortens my studying time and ruins my sleep schedule. This can lead to a reoccurring cycle of unhealthy
sleep, so I try my best to sleep after studying. However, in my difficult days, I choose to ignore my
negative actions to fulfill my internal needs. This does not apply only academically, but also in social life.
I tend to make repeating mistakes by choosing to follow my heart and not my brain. I often catch myself
in a cycle of echoes when deciding to surround myself with people that will only cause me harm in the
future. I ignore this due to the enjoyment of present time. I tend to ghost about the future
consequences of mental damage and problems due to the present actions I chose to make. Instead of
walking away from the understanding, I think I should think twice before choosing to commit to the
actions.

Social Responsibility

Strengths:

1. I have positive peer and intergenerational relationships.

I have multiple healthy and supportive connections with groups of similar age and other generations
that include friends, family, school, or work. I prioritize respect when it comes to interacting with others.
I find myself an engaging listener and a reliable friend. My respectfulness, politeness, and positive
behavior lets me connect with others ranging from teachers to children. I think this is an important skill
to have because communication is essential for life. Due to this reason, I believe that having positive
connections such as listening skills is crucial for proper communication.

2. I can identify and appreciate different perspectives on issues and use and evaluate strategies to
resolve problems.

Rather than judging from one perspective, I always view the whole picture first before deciding on any
judgements based on facts not feelings. I carefully observe while I actively listen to others, trying to
understand different viewpoints in my interactions. I am an honest and reliable listener to others,
especially when giving advice. I communicate my perspectives effectively while trying to find mutually
beneficial resolutions through empathy and reflection on past experiences. This can be demonstrated
when trying to resolve problems with friends or even in a social environment, such as work.

Weakness:

1. I am aware of the community and environment and work independently and collaboratively for
the benefit of others.

While I am capable of working effectively independently or collaboratively, I do not prioritize the

benefits of others and the environment in my actions and decisions. I act based on the benefit of myself
to fulfill my internal needs. Aiming to help others, I am fully capable of working well both on my own
and with others. However, sometimes I might forget to think about how my actions affect the
community and the environment. So, while I'm good at getting things done, I understand I need to pay
more attention to how my actions impact everyone and everything around me. This includes using
nonrelevant plastic or buying too much fast fashion. Being mindful of this will help me become even
more effective in making positive contributions to both people and the environment.
Critical Thinking

Strengths:

1. I can analyze and make defensive judgements, draw conclusions, and consider a variety of
perspectives.

This means not having tunnel vision and having an open mind to all relevant perspectives when drawing
out conclusions. In a daily life example, this can be found when I am choosing a gift for someone special.
I want to include a variety of perspectives that can contribute to what gift I can get to satisfy the
person's standards. This also includes when shopping for clothes, I need to think before buying. Will this
piece of clothing be relevant to me in the long term, and can I get it cheaper somewhere else are
perspectives I ask for the benefit of myself. I think this is an important trait to have; it is the crucial
awareness needed for a successful choice.

2. I understand the purpose for my work and consider my audience.

When creating work that will be showcased to the audience, I always consider what I can do to catch
their attention and impression. I try to provide the best quality I can when presenting to the audience
because I want to meet their expectations. Improving work skills such as procrastination and quality is
something learned throughout life. As I work, I understand the purpose or benefit for me; it is to teach
myself skills while growing in them. I work as a barista and one of my responsibilities is to serve plates to
people. When serving food to people, I try my best to put on good performance skills such as positive
facial expressions and kind tone when interacting. At school, when creating any type of presentation, I
try to keep the audience's engagement. I think one of my strongest traits is creating PowerPoint slides. I
like to get creative with transitions and animations that will contribute to the audience's attention span.

Weakness:

1. I can assess my progress.

Usually when evaluating myself, I can overlook any errors. So, when assessing any kind of progress, I like
to ask for advice from peers or from a teacher. I think I am confident in any work I put my whole effort
into, which can be a problem in overlooking some factors that could use some improvement. Thus, I
always ask the audience around me for advice, which I use to contribute to affecting the quality better.
This includes schoolwork such as projects and write-ups or working skills. I think advice from others
when assessing progress can be more beneficial because more minds are better than one.

Creative Thinking

Strengths:

1. I can use the environment around me, including others, and my unconscious mind to generate
new ideas.

I think getting influenced by the environment and others around me is a convenient way to generate
new ideas. Impacted from others, then using their ideas to generate and build onto new ones is a
positive way in creative thinking. This includes school projects from talking with peers or in small groups
to help each other build onto one another's ideas which maximizes the creativity that is being produced.
Not only does this include people but books, social media, and experiences as well. We learn from what
we see, hear, and experience, so relying on the environment is a reliable way to generate new ideas. An
example of the media can be AI. AI could cause harm when used negatively, however it can be a
supportive tool in sparking new ideas that could be used to build onto.

2. I can take my ideas, evaluate, develop, and refine them and make something productive out of
them.

When creating something productive, a bunch of factors must be considered before a resulting product.
This includes a lot of brainstorming, information gathering, testing, and reflecting for improvement. This
can be used when I bake. Before ending with a product, I must ask myself in which ways I can do to
make something productive. My ideas that are also heavily influenced by social media are then
evaluated on success. I ask myself, when baking a cookie, how can I become more creative? Perhaps a
unique design or character could apply. Combining all these mental processing steps will create a
productive product with the right mindset and determination. This also applies to schoolwork or other
hobbies that involve critical thinking skills.

Weakness:

1. I can persevere and understand that failure can be productive.

Being completely honest, I am terrified of failure. Failure is what I try to avoid because it causes fear,
headaches, and breakdowns. A small mistake can easily crush my ego which results to overthinking that
I am not good enough. I see failure as a disappointment because I think it means that I did not try hard
enough, or I could’ve done something better to avoid this failure. Depending on what I fail, I think I
deserve some sort of punishment such as skipping a meal or isolating myself. Failing a test, work, lesson
or any activity in life is what I try to avoid because it will lead to my inner necessity becoming damaged.
Failure is rejection and I despise rejection in life.

Communication

Strengths:

1. I can reflect on the processes of learning and share what I have learned.

I enjoy sharing my knowledge of what I am confident in. This applies to school assignments my younger
sister needs assistance on. I am aware I gain more knowledge than her so I provide her help based on
what I learned, that could be beneficial to her. By going over the steps I learned with others, this is also a
way to reflect on my learning. In school, I like to provide help to peers if needed such as chemistry
questions and math questions. This also applies to life experiences such as relationships or other
problems; I think I can be great for a listening ear and realistic advice based on what I learned.

2. I can engage in deep and meaningful inquiry for a variety of purposes and audiences.

When deep and meaningful inquiry questions are required, I can engage in grasping information when
trying to learn or contribute. This can apply to work; on my first day of training in a cafe, attentive
listening and questions were needed to understand the material I was learning. This was important to
reduce any errors to the audience when working at the cafe such as serving to the wrong table or
selecting the wrong item from menu. It was my responsibility to engage in the crucial inquiry being
provided to me. Engaging in deep and meaningful inquiries requires proficient listening skills, which I
exceed at.

Weakness:

1. I can listen, learn to contribute meaningfully to discussion and debate, consider different
perspectives, and build consensus.

Being more of an introvert can limit my ideas from being exposed. When I am placed in a quiet group, I
find myself more eager to share my ideas out loud. However, when I am placed in a loud group that I am
not familiar with, I tend to keep my thoughts to myself. This relates to groups discussions at school.
Although I exceed myself at considering and building onto different perspectives, I find it more
comforting to keep the ideas to myself depending on the group. This does not necessarily mean I am
shy; however, I am more of the introvert side and prefer not to participate in debates.

Personal & Cultural Identity

Strengths:

1. I know my strengths and what makes me unique.

I believe everyone has something that makes them stand out than others. My sense of realistic thinking,
straightforwardness, and flexibility from doing yoga at a young age makes me who I am. I am full of
determination; I usually chase after what I want without foreswearing until the goal is reached. This is
demonstrated in my recent job search. Searching for a job was not easy and I was exhausted from
receiving no replies from the online applications. So, I went out on foot to all the places I could find from
8am to 5pm, which proves my commitment and determination. My hard work ethic showcases after two
weeks when I receive a reply from a cafe. Others may have given up, however I did not, and I pushed
myself further towards reaching my goal. Nowadays, my determination is pushing me to try harder in
learning the environment at the cafe I work at.

2. I can define myself in terms of my relationship to others and the world.

I am aware of the interconnectedness between myself, others, and the environment, showcasing that
my understanding of myself is not isolated but rather combined with social and environmental factors. I
am aware of where I stand with certain relationships with different peers, and I try to limit any
negativity. This also applies to the world as I am trying to find my purpose. I am learning from mistakes
and growing up to contribute to the relationship with the world positively. This includes being a heartfelt
sister, reliable friend, and compassionate cat taker. I try my best to impact others' lives positively,
however I am still learning as I grow.

Weakness:

1. I understand how what I value has and will shape my choices.

To be honest, I think I may take advantage of what I hold and forsake the choices. This includes my
relationships with family. Maybe I can be a better daughter or sister, but I made regrettable mistakes in
the past because I did not think about my choices. I need to appreciate the things I am provided with
and understand not to fumble the advantages I was given. I was given hardworking parents and a lucky
family. I am imperfect and made some flawed choices that damaged my value with my parents in the
past. I think I need to stop searching for validation from others and become more aware I have lucky
values, my family, and think twice before I act.