Describe a time you had to make an ethical decision. How you weighed up the values involved, the decision you made, the consequences.

Deciding on a career path becomes an ethical decision as we consider the small but important effect we’ll have on the world through our work over the period of our working life.

A line of work where I feel I can contribute my best work, achieve my personal goals, while also serving others without doing harm is programming. That’s why I made my recent career shift.

When you build something that is useful and novel, you are increasing the size of the pie for everyone. Whatever work I’m doing or whoever I’m working with, I know that much of what I do, at least in a small way, accumulates like another node in an increasingly large, complex and powerful network.

Technology, at its best, is the golden goose that never dies, indiscriminately providing for all of us. To the point that there are many good things in life we take for granted, afforded to us by the efforts of many different people over the course of history.

At its worst, technology is a nightmare. And not just a personal nightmare like a difficult bug or code that won’t compile, but a real global threat.

Fear not. A positive future is waiting to be built by good people, one byte at a time.

How culture has influenced your values and identity.

Everything all of the time.

Of all of the internet's unintended side-effects, one is that every single young person is constantly aware of the various values, lifestyles, vocations and levels of status that we could conceivably hold.

The reality that I am one man with a handful of friends living in a tiny country with a tiny economy is therefore lost on me. The world is with me in my pocket and my aspirations are unbridled.

My hope is that anything I achieve will serve as an inspiration to others, to challenge what they believe they can and can’t do.

Not in a ‘world champion’ kind of way, more like ‘be the best you can be’.

Stop thinking of this as being money… “It’s just money”... Please decondition yourself…

I suppose one day we’ll live in a world where being broke isn’t a threat to dignity.

Until that day, making lots of money is high on my list of priorities, for the benefit of those near and dear to me and for myself.

Listening to wise, rich people talk about money I’ve noticed that they rarely state their financial aspirations out loud and unabashedly in public.

There are probably very good reasons for this. Perhaps being financially motivated makes it seem like you’re “in it for the wrong reasons”. Perhaps it makes you a target for criticism. A Tall Poppy.

Oh well. For now, in my ignorance and with the increasing cost of living at the forefront of many people's minds, I will tell you straight up that I am here to get that paper.

That cheese.

Moolah.

Franklins.

Guap.

Pesos.

Dolla dolla bills, yo.

My Strengths, Weaknesses and Limitations

Evaluate your strengths and limitations in terms of learning and career development.

From recent feedback of friends and colleagues, the consensus seems to be that I am analytical and have a voracious appetite for understanding the nuts and bolts of how things work. And that my willingness to put the hours in will create some kind of pay-off in my professional life.

I’ve been surprised recently to be thought of as someone who tends to take charge or is unafraid of difficult or confronting conversations.

Ironically, it’s always been in my nature to leave things to the last minute and never show up early to anything. I’ve gotten better. It wasn’t easy.

While I sometimes speak up with a useful opinion on the best course of action, or alternative to the way things are currently being done, I’m other times extremely anxious or overwhelmed by the task of creating that solution or plan when there are so many dynamics at play to be considered.

I will also tell you my deepest secret: When I was younger I was very sensitive and I worried constantly about how others felt and what they thought of me.

Identify which of your strengths might help you in your learning journey and how they intersect with learning obstacles.

When I take personality tests, I get this interesting mix of contradictory responses.

16 Personalities labels me as a ‘Commander’.

Commanders are “decisive people who love momentum and accomplishment. They gather information to construct their creative visions but rarely hesitate for long before acting on them.”

Think Steve Jobs or Gordon Ramsay.

The High 5 Test claims my top strengths are as a…

5. Philomath (knowledge seeker)
4. Strategist (big picture thinker)
3. Commander (charge-taker)
2. Analyst (clarity provider)

And then somehow, paradoxically…

1. Empathizer (Someone who understands others and uses that to do good for them)

My hope is that these qualities will help me help others throughout the course.

Paired with my coding skills gained from self-teaching, I should be in a good position to consolidate my learning by teaching others.

A challenge for me could be managing my anxiety levels, looking after my mental health using my usual tricks which include:

• Exercising, even if it’s light.
• Eating the home-cooked “mother-approved” healthy diet.
• Sleeping 7-8 hours each night.
• Surrounding myself with supportive people.

Share an example from your experience of where you were trying to work productively with others, but there was resistance or tension. Discuss the strategies you would try now and why.

While doing group work at Uni, I was in a group composed of myself, another student, and two best friends. The best friends were solid straight A students, the rest of us were not.

The best friends ended up re-doing our work to get it to the standard they wanted. By the time I was aware of the group dynamic, the work was done and our work was submitted. The best friends got their A, and the rest of us knew they’d lifted us up.

My regret is that I would’ve liked to consider the level of work the group wanted to achieve and make an effort to get my contribution to that level. Then if more work or revision was needed, maybe seek help from the group in the form of feedback or examples from their own work, or from the lecturer.

I also could’ve asked the excellent best-friend duo for a chance to revise my work before they had to redo it themselves.

Communicating standards and expectations in a respectful productive way is a significant challenge especially when different students are at different stages of their learning journey.

My hope is that during this course I will be able to contribute work to a level that I can be proud of and that I can help others work to a level that they can be proud of.