Personal works

Aside from User Experience design, I also create artworks and do casual video editing on the side. Thus, I decided that I wanted to showcase a few of my works on this portfolio website as well.

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Video Edits Gallery

Aside from dabbling in drawing, I picked up doing video editing back in 2019. It started off as a small hobby, where I would create simple transitions of pictures with my favorite characters from shows. But as time went on, I started exploring more with this hobby, such as dabbling in a little bit of animation making with art from Japanese comics or art of my own.It eventually turned into a very useful skill that I would leverage in projects, inside and outside of school. As such, below are some of the works I created on different video editing softwares.

This was the first ever instance that I leveraged my video editing skills in areas outside my hobby. It was a task assigned where we had to film and edit a video that would match up with our given audio. While I had friends helping with the filming and the whole setting of the scenes, I mainly did the video editing on my own. It was definitely the most fun I had with exploring what my skills could do.

During my internship with Azendian, I was tasked with creating a lot of marketing collaterals for the company. Thus, this was one of the first video projects that I worked on creating for the company's LinkedIn

Artwork Gallery

Growing up, I spent a lot of time watching gameplays and animations on YouTube, which sparked my early interest in creativity and storytelling. Inspired by what I saw, I began experimenting on my own: creating short animations on my phone and doodling during class. What started as a fun pastime quickly became a serious hobby, and for a while, I even considered pursuing animation or even game design as a full-time career.However, over time, I realized I didn’t want to turn something I loved into a chore. Instead, I chose to channel those creative skills into something broader, User Experience Design. As such, below are some illustrations and doodles I've done over the years.

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PROJECT GALLERY

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Final Year Project

Project deliverables

To summarize, we were tasked with designing the entrance experience of the Republic Polytechnic ESG Center to showcase a dashboard that presents RP's sustainability data, alongside the exit experience, where a digital display and an interactive website for users to interact and engage with

3 things I've contributed

The first big contribution I made was the development of the storyboard. During the start of our project, we had troubles trying to grasp the direction that we were headed in our work, so it was really difficult understanding what the finished outcome would've looked. However, after creating the storyboard and relooking over our work, alongside presenting it, a lot of people felt like it was easier to visualize the idea of our final design thanks to the storyboard. Thanks to the addition of the storyboard, we were also able to get across our idea to everyone who we were pitching to. More specifically, people complimented how well the images showcased the actions we imagined being taken by people. As such, I felt like this was one of my first major contributions to the project, aside from developing Persona and Empathy designs.

Another big contribution I had in the entire project was the 3D model of Republic Polytechnic's buildings. It was one deliverable that we were in charge of, to make the visuals of the school map look "3D" and to use it for the dashboard visual, so as to make it more engaging, prompting more attention from students so as to encourage them to learn more about the changes in our school's energy consumption through the years. It was also a very big portion of the dashboard design, where the map had to show the school's energy consumption data. As such, completing it was a very important task that we had to ensure to complete. I was really proud as how simplistic it looked while still getting across the idea that it was the school's campus map. I was really proud of how the final render came out and fit into the user interface really well.

The last big contribution I made was editing our activation video. The activation video served as our simple explanation to our final solution. However, it was challenging originally to plan out how we wanted the video to be like. As such, I took more of a lead on suggesting a few ideas into this portion, such as the "Right here, right now, right at RP" line transition at the very end of the video. I especially liked that because of the simplicity of the visuals, and yet how impactful and fast it gets the message across to people. From there, it gave us more of an idea of how we wanted to pace the video and plan it out further, sparking more motivation. This made me took up the role of video editing given my previous experience in the use of video editing tools This video was also one of our major submission items in the bulk, being a very important part in getting across the solution's key features, and thus, completing it was necessary in order for us to consider the project a completion before moving onto the administrative side of the submissions.

My personal learning experience

It was really fun to get to work with friends I have known and worked with in the past for different projects. However, there was a few bumps along the road where we would have frustrations expressed about certain things we do in the project, which lead a lot to a few moments where we had difficulties trying to come to an agreement on things. Despite that, my teammates somehow still stayed civil with one another, despite all the issues we had piled up. They taught me an important lesson of communication and teamwork, where they would be open and honest to one another in their points, but still find a middle ground to come to an agreement on. This made me realize how especially important it is to have the ability to be transparent, and to yet compromise and work to tackle the issues we have together, not by going against one or another.Another thing I've learnt and overcame during this project was my lack of motivation in contributing to the workload. During the very start of the project, I often found myself unable to give feedback or responses. Despite the rough patch I went through where I would take on more menial tasks in comparison to the rest, everyone in my group still supported and encouraged me through giving me workload that were more towards any of my interests, to help encourage me to take on more roles while not overwhelming me with things I would likely be slower on. This inclusion and understanding helped to make taking on the workload more fun, which eventually prompted me to take on more roles and tasks during the later part of the project. It also made the process of completing this together with them a very memorable yet fond one, given the time we had invested into meeting up with one another to keep up to date with our tasks.Lastly, the biggest thing I've learnt through working in this team was that mistakes were okay to make, as long as we learnt from them. The project wasn't always perfect, we had a lot of refinements that we had to make throughout the process of working on it. But it was through these imperfections, that my teammates and I were able to improve and expand on our ideas further, giving way to higher quality work produced from us all, alongside more creative ideas that we would have never thought of at the very start of this project.Overall, This entire project has been a very eye opening experience, and I frankly do not regret ever working with the people in my team to make this final solution off ours a reality. It is because of their efforts and mine that we were able to confidently get through the project.

Azendian Website Interface Redesign

During my internship at Azendian, I was tasked with redesigning key pages of the company’s website to better reflect its brand values and improve user experience. As part of this project, I created high-fidelity prototypes to help visualize the proposed interface improvements. These redesigns aimed to enhance visual hierarchy, streamline content flow, and ensure the site communicated Azendian’s solutions more effectively.Below are a few pages of the website that I had remade on Figma, with some of the most prominent changes being done to the overall colour scheme of the website. This was to help better boost the company's colour branding, similar to competitors in the field, and to keep the design cohesive.

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Dental Application User Interface Design

This project involved designing a user-friendly mobile app interface for a dental service platform. The goal was to create an intuitive, clean, and approachable UI that would help users easily book their appointments based on their needs, to keep track of their dental records and to communicate with their dentists.Another key feature was the inclusion of a separate booking package specifically for families not well to do with children aged 9 to 12 who are holders of the Blue CHAS card. As such, I developed some wireframes of the application to help me better visualize my idea, where I got feedback from my peers and improved upon my original design before finalizing it and developing a prototype version.

WireframesTo summarize, we were tasked with designing the entrance experience of the Republic Polytechnic ESG Center to showcase a dashboard that presents RP's sustainability data, alongside the exit experience, where a digital display and an interactive website for users to

Prototype

• Figma Prototype Link

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Food Up Application Interface Design

Food Up is a food delivery start-up company that wanted to develop a mobile application to help hungry people get food. As such, I was tasked to help provide potential solutions to the company, specifically to cater to two specific stakeholder groups: The delivery riders and the customers.Thus, after extensive research, I developed some paper prototype examples to test out my idea and to conduct 3 different user tasks:Task 1: Sign up for an account on the FoodUp Application
“How would you sign up for an account from this page?”Task 2: Place an order into your cart on the application
“Try ordering something cheap from McDonalds”Task 3: Log out of your account from the application
“How would you log out from here?”

After creating my paper prototype, I carried out the user tasks mentioned above with two family members: My mother and my brother. Below is the feedback given by them on their experience with carrying out their tasks with the paper prototype:

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Other Personal Works

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Reflections: Lesson 1

Success

I was asked a few questions as fruit for thought. The first question being: Who is the most successful person I know? There are many successful people out there in the world, but what we view as success is different for everyone. As such, the most successful person I know in my opinion is this group of youtubers known as "The Group".While they're simply just youtubers coasting in life and not doing anything significant, I admire the lifestyle that they have managed to achieve through their videos on YouTube channel, being able to spend time with one another creating content in the same home and also doing what they love as a job. It feels like a very rare kind of success to have, being able to enjoy what they do for work and getting to share that success with their own friends.Of course, while there was bumps on their journey to success, with videos corrupting and huge demands in the frequency of uploading content, they stayed persistent and patient in their work and continuously supported one another through their rough times, helping them to properly produce quality content for their followers and grow as a channel.That is my main goal of success: to really find happiness in my future and the things I love to do. It is why I decided to take up this module, to really better understand how I can make myself grittier and to be more resilient in my path to success. I just simply want to be happy with my progress and be able to juggle between doing work and keeping up relations with those whom I love.

While there are many ways to formulate success to many different contexts, I believe in the following success formulas:Personal: Fulfilment + Self Improvement = Success
Relationship: Respect + Understanding = Sucess
Academic/Career: Balance + Enjoyment = Success

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Reflections: Lesson 2

Growth or Fixed Mindset: What is it?

For this lesson, we were started off with a video about the story of the Polgar Sisters : Three sisters whom were raised as an experiment to combat the idea that geniuses are born with talent, not made with hard work. In the video, it was mentioned that the youngest sister was seen as trhe "least talented" amongst the three siblings. However, she ultimately still ended up ranking as the top ranking woman in chess, beating both her older sisters.The overall message of the video was to teach the viewers that really anything can be done if there is hard work and effort put into it. It really is dependent on the mindset that we have when trying to achieve what seems "out of reach" or "impossible". If we limit ourselves, we'll likely stay that way for as long as we maintain the same mentality.A fixed mindset is in short, the belief that our abilities and talents are given to us at birth, and will remain fixed that way for our entire lives. In contrast, a growth mindset is the belief that with hard work, effort and practice, you are able to develop and nurture intelligence and abilities.

What mindset do I have?

After we learnt about the Polgar sisters, we moved on to understanding which mindset we took on more: A fixed or growth mindset, making use of 5 statements which we felt best described us in the above image. I had picked out 3 even numbers and 2 odd numbers. Even numbers signifying a growth mindset and odd ones signifying a fixed mindset. While I had more even numbers picked out, I had some odd number statements picked out as well, which I felt should be worked on, such as 3 and 5.While being motivated to do better is a good thing, I am aware that feeling threatened by other's success or wanting to prove my worth in being smart or talented can be very damaging and stems from poor self esteem. I believe I have a lot more to work on when it comes to my self esteem, however it is not something that can't be improved if i put my mind to it. It was one of the main reasons why i chose the "Grow with G.R.I.T." Module, to have better confidence in myself and to focus on my own successes and not others, to not be fueled by jealousy or negativity.

Examples of the growth and fixed mindset in my daily life

Some examples of a growth mindset I've encountered during my daily life is firstly, encouraging myself or anyone in general with the phrase "You got this" during rough patches, rather than pulling down the mood. Another example of a growth mindset behavior I have is pushing myself to take up competitions, even if there is no guarantees of winning or being at the top. Simply doing it for fun is already a learning experience on its own that can help me grow and do better for future events. Lastly, simply focusing on self improvement is also an example of growth mindset. Acknowledging the wrongs have helped me better myself in a lot of my hobbies, such as art, video editing and in graphic design.Some examples of a fixed mindset in my daily life however, is talking myself down whenever things don't go my way in plans or projects. I often tell myself "what's the point" whenever I face setbacks. Alongside that, I also tend to stick to what i know when i feel its convenient for me, rejecting people's advice until it is proven better.

While fixed mindsets are hard to overcome, with enough resilience and patience, there can be changes made to the way I think to better.

While it was easy to change up the statements to be one of a growth mindset, it is easier said than done. Thus, there must be consistency and resilience in ensuring that these changes are implemented

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Reflections: Lesson 3

My learning curve and mindset as an artist

As an artist, I had many ups and downs in my learning curve when I was starting out. It started off as a hobby I really liked, and I wanted to pursue it as a full time occupation of mine as I got into secondary school. But as time went on and the more that I did art, i found myself often facing many downs whenever I tried to improve myself. It started to tire me out and eventually, I even hated doing art.I took a hiatus after my 'O' levels ended and only returned when I finally felt confident to pick up my pencil again. For me, I feel that being engaged and enjoying what you're learning helps with making our learning progress more efficiently and quickly. While there were times where I had to persevere on, I would remind myself of how my mom would push through hardships at work being the sole breadwinner of the family, and would continue on my work from there.

One SMART Goal to succeed in my personal life: Eating Vegetables

One thing i struggle a lot with is eating healthy. As such, i want to make it my goal to try and intake a more balanced diet, focusing on intaking more vegetables as I often avoid eating them. As such, the first week of December, I hope to have developed the habit of incorporating vegetables into one meal every day. To make this goal attainable, I could get my brother to join me to help me stay more committed to the goal. In return, this will help me with improving my memory, alongside healthier skin and hair, which I find important to take care of. I am hoping to be able to change my eating habits within the next two months, as I often need time to get adjusted to new practices.While it is easy to plan out a diet, it can also be as easy to encounter setbacks, where I don't follow the plan and ultimately return back to my unhealthy diet. As such, to ensure that i stick with my routine, I could have a friend or a family member follow me in this diet, so that I feel more motivated to keep up and continue on in this practice. To end off, a quote that i feel will help me commit and stay focused would be "The secret of getting ahead is getting started" from Mark Twain. I feel that the hardest part about achieving a goal is the starting point. But after I get myself accustomed, it would eventually get easier, and form into a habit rather than a chore.

Baby steps towards my SMART goal

Some baby steps I can take to ensure I achieve my goals for the next few weeks is to ensure to stock up on the essential ingredients needed to prepare the healthy diet. This way, I won't have a reason to deter myself from eating vegetables for the day and keep the diet consistent. Another thing I can do is to also slowly but surely incorporate the vegetables into the meal. For example, I start off small and place some vegetables in one meal every two days. As the days go by, I increase the intake and make it into a daily thing. This allows me to ease into the habit slowly, making the changes so that they're small but unnoticeable

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Reflections: Lesson 4

My baby steps: Progress

As of right now, I've tried to incorporate vegetables at least to one meal every two days. It has been a bit slow, but i am getting accustomed and slowly easing into the routine of it. To help improve my diet, I also incorporated eating some fruits after some of my meals, such as watermelons and apples. Besides that, I'm slowly trying to get used to and ease myself into the routine, and hopefully within the next few weeks, i can increase my intake of vegetables further

Past, Current and Future goals

Listing down my goals, it made me realize how a lot of the goals I set for myself that were completed were ones that were easily achievable with cash, while the ones in progress and the ones not being worked on required some form of effort and commitment to complete. It was easy to get tickets to a concert, to get merchandise and to get a tablet since I had already worked at a part-time job with extra money to spare, alongside doing a cosplay. As for visiting a country, my family mainly planned the trip we took over to Korea, so I didn't have to do much to make it happen. However, things such as learning how to do make up or learning to play the Ukelele takes consistent effort and practice to make it work or to improve. The same would go for cycling or learning to render artwork where more effort, patience and time to see the results come to fruition.

Experience of achieving goals

Growing up, I wasn't taught very thoroughly by my parents for things such as skin care, hair care or any form of self care. Since they were both emotionally absent for a majority of my life, I had to learn things on my own or from experiences I had in the past, alongside ask my friends or teachers for any form of guidance or feedback on things. This affected the way that I tackled getting to my goals, where I was often left to learn on my own and afraid to make mistakes as mistakes always meant punishment.Another factor that affected my ability to achieve my goals was my relationships. Often times, I would cast aside goals I set for my hobbies to spend time with my loved ones and neglecting the things I loved to do, in fear that it was my obligation to spend any time I had and was able to give to those who I cared for a lot. This ultimately ended up setting my progress behind a lot, since I was constantly focused on pleasing others rather than myself. Depending on the goal I set I usually end up procrastinating a ton, mainly due to burnout. For smaller projects that don't take much time such as video editing, I tend to focus and do it all in one sitting, so that I can get more work done.However, big projects take time and I tend to eventually lose focus and get distracted. Thus, due to these I have to always take a ton of effort to keep myself on track and to pay attention to the main goals I've set. While this is a major issue, It has helped me better plan back ups whenever I procrastinate, so as to balance out the constant delaying and loss of time.

Current Goals: Categorization

5 Specific goals I want to work on

From the given list of goals I had, the 5 goals I picked that I wanted to work on was mostly cramped onto the top right section, where it is of high importance and of high interest, with only one being of low importance, but high interest.

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Reflections: Lesson 5

My baby steps: Progress 2

I've moved into trying out having vegetables as a part of my daily diet. As of the last update however, i am faltering with keeping up the habit. There are some days where I don't remember to stock up on the salad ingredients, thus leaving me a reason to procrastinate, and ultimately setting me back from achieving my goal. I try to discipline myself however I can, but it can get overwhelming having to travel to the market after a long day of classes to get ingredients. I won't let that stop me from trying again though, I will still try to keep the habit up, even as the days get more tough.

Team sharing: Exploring Interests

In one of the activities I had for my lesson today, I discussed with Vitha, one of my classmates, about our goals and interests alongside how we've been trying to achieve them. The main point was how Vitha wanted to improve upon a certain subject and to study harder. And to ensure she achieves this goal, she tries to reward herself after she studies so as to help balance the burnout she faces, which is a big issue she has whenever she tries to focus on her studies.We were then asked to do a sharing on if we were a consumer or a creator, i shared that I felt that I was more of a consumer. Growing up, I was a creator and I enjoyed making content for YouTube a ton. As time went on however, It felt like I couldn't match up to other artists and making content that nobody cared for felt more like a burden than something I enjoyed. Eventually, I gave up and took a break from creating content as a whole from YouTube and it has been almost 7 years since I've invested time in creating content again.We also got to share some of the things we were interested in. Two of my group mates, Fatiha and Jun Le were interested in cooking and baking. Fatiha had been baking since she was in Secondary School learning how to make cheesecakes and other traditional Malay desserts. She said that it was pretty uncommon these days for people to indulge in these activities and to learn recipes that are integral to her culture, and is thus why she feels that content on this can help bring more awareness to the different types of desserts we don't take notice of. Jun Le on the other hand, likes cooking, and had started picking up this interest earlier in the year. He does this simply to help with his diet, monitoring what he eats carefully. He says that those looking to get fit and stay active would find his cooking useful, as he ensures to cook specific foods for specific meals so as to balance out the nutrients he needs for the day. As for Vitha, she told me that she was 3 years into learning how to use a waveboard. I thought it was a pretty interesting and niche.One advice my groupmates gave me was to start creating content with my art that would help improve upon other people's. They felt that I had the potential to teach my skills. They also said that I should pursue product design, as they said it was relevant to what I was studying.

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Reflections: Lesson 6

What are our values?

During the start of the lesson, me and my partner, Vitha, made a Venn diagram showcasing the values we had separately, and the ones that we both shared. Below was what we made, alongside the ranking of our values

How do they translate in person?

While the values we hold may take on the same name, our values show up in different actions and take on many different forms. Below is what I feel each value translates to in my personal life

A not so ideal incident: Values that are a work in progress

There were some days where I would often get into fights with my dad due to clashes in our values and beliefs. While we shared the same value of loyalty, he always felt that his way of doing things should be the highest say, ultimately making it feel like a very constricted and controlling relationship to deal with. Because of that however, I've grown to realize that I lacked the value of understanding where my dad was coming from, especially given his background since all I wanted was respect from him.This resulted in a very strained relationship where I barely ever consult him for my problems or for advice. I regret not being more understanding but I did wished sometimes that my dad would feel the same way too, to push aside his pride and to admit for once he was wrong and to give me the same respect he tried hard to demand from me.If i had to change anything about this however, I wouldn't change anything, as much as I wanted to. While I'm willing to change, none of my concerns I've ever expressed have ever seemed to be taken seriously by him. Thus, I think its fruitless to change anything on my end, when the outcome would remain the same, regardless of how much I try to understand. While being understanding is important, knowing when to stop is also important for the sake of our own mental health.

Dear past me

Hey, I know things haven't been the best. You've struggled a lot with anxiety the past few years, but trust me when I say it gets better eventually and you stop caring about what others think of you as much as you do now. I don't have much to say except that I am very proud of how much you've stuck through and how strong you are. Keep up the good work and you'll eventually be in a better place. You got this

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Reflections: Lesson 7

Tic Tac Toe

For today's lesson, we started off on playing Tic Tac Toe with a twist: We had to score the ability to place down a mark on the tile if we were able to make the cub stand up in a specific direction. During the first round, most of us had difficulties trying to make it stand upright. A lot of us participated and used a lot of force to get the cup to stand. Lots of us were engrossed with trying to make it stand rather than working on our technique. Which was why for the second round, a lot of us remained to watch instead of actually playing because we eventually got fed up with trying to win.When it came to my turn, I struggled a lot with getting the right angle to throw the cup at, which made it really difficult for me to keep pushing since i kept failing at every turn. Some symptoms of stress I observed happened to not just others but also to myself was impatience and agitation, thus an accelerated heartbeat, alongside shaky hands. This made it more difficult to land the cups the way i wanted to and made me lose concentration on the activity eventually.

Examples of Stress

To start off, an example of Eustress, a positive form of stress was when I practice drawing. While it stressed me out to not be able to fully grasp the concepts i was learning, it wasn't in a way that made me feel bad. If anything, it felt fulfilling to learn new things when it came to drawing, since it would help me create pieces that I really like. It noticeably made a difference in how much faster i drew and how much more natural my drawings of characters seem as well. Thus, an example of Eustress.One example of a Neustress would be listening to about news from social media. There are a lot of negative news that come out of social media everyday. While it is not a threat or directly relevant to me, it feels guilty to not be able to help or to contribute in a positive way to these unfortunate incidents, making it an unconscious form of stressAn example of Destress from daily life would be school projects and work. While it is helpful in aiding my studies and in learning new things, it gets overwhelming to do and even a pain sometimes, making it hard to enjoy my time in school. I am also always paired up with people who contribute little to nothing to projects, making it even more difficult on my end and often results in me bearing the weight of most of my groupmate's works too. This form of stress makes it difficult to really catch a break since I have to plan my time around work before anything I love.

How do i react in the face of stress and how I manage it?

When faced with stress such as tons of school work that's due, I tend to have an accelerated heartbeat. This in turn makes it difficult for me to focus and heightens my anxiety, which also causes for my hands to tremble a lot. As a result, these episodes often require me to take large amount of breaks to stop panicking, procrastinating until I finally feel somewhat stable and well mentally to complete work. This in turn took up a lot of energy to complete any projects in general.As such, I often take small breaks with rewards in between every hour interval, so as to help calm down any stress I have and to unwind while still getting my work done up. This helps calm the shakes I get and also with slowing down my anxiety. I also exercise a bit in between to help with relieving any stress.

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Reflections: Lesson 8

Mindfulness to me

Mindfulness to me is about being aware of our surroundings and paying attention to what is happening in the moment. Personally, some examples of mindfulness exercise that I practice myself includes music meditation and even cycling during bad days. This helps me stay mindful and to calm down, to help keep me head straight and focused on the present, so that i do not take out my feelings on someone else.

My morning routine

In the morning is usually when I am the most silent. I usually take this time to adjust and wake my body up for classes, or to simply get it warmed up for the day ahead, so I conserve my energy and talk less in comparison to later in the day. As such, despite that I usually do a lot of things after I wake up, especially during school. I would take a shower or brush my teeth depending on how much time I have from when i wake up.I then take the time to adjust and style my hair appropriately for the day to look at the very least presentable since it gets messy whenever i wake up. After which, I take time to pick outfits out and to pack up my bag with everything before heading off to school. Its a ton to work with, but I often limit interactions when I wake up in the morning.

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Grow with G.R.I.T. CA1 Submission

1a) Essay on what grit and mindsets mean to you

Grit is all about being able to persevere and stay resilient through challenges, according to the definition provided within the dictionary. While it sounds simple on the surface, being able to form grit takes a lot of effort. To me, having grit is being able to tell yourself that even through all the hardships faced throughout our journey, be it academically, personally, or relationship-wise, that you are able to take away an important lesson or find the good in everything despite how bleak or dull the situation is. Grit is also about having purpose and passion to pursue your goals to the very end, no matter what gets in the way.To have grit depends greatly on the mindset one adopts when facing challenges. Our mindsets are shaped by the attitudes and beliefs we hold that's influenced by those we surround ourselves with, and they often determine the direction and outcome of our journey. They also influence many of the decisions we make in everyday life. While there are countless types of attitudes, they can generally be classified into two main categories: the growth mindset and the fixed mindset. Individuals I've known with a fixed mindset tend to lack grit, often clinging to their comfort zones and avoiding opportunities for improvement out of fear of failure or low self-confidence. In contrast, those I've known with a growth mindset share a strong connection with grit, as they view challenges as chances to learn, persist through setbacks, and continuously strive for growth.Having the right mindset and grit are both important attributes to have, it helps individuals grow and better themselves, alongside provide them with determination and strength to overcome problems, leading to desirable outcomes and lasting achievements.

1b) Reflection on key actions to nurture a growth mindset

Nurturing a growth mindset is a difficult task, as often times most of us grow up with horrible influences and experiences that keeps us stuck in a fixed mindset. However, speaking with the same experience, it is possible to work towards having a growth mindset. One of the biggest key factors that helped me nurture a growth mindset was being open to criticism. Being open to criticism what what helped me improve in my understanding in art. It allowed me to better understand what were the areas I had to improve upon and it sped up my progression towards improving areas in my art such as anatomy and perspective.Aside from taking in criticism, I also made it a habit to remind myself that mistakes aren't something to be embarrassed about, and to see them as opportunities. I do this whenever I am unsure of topics being taught during classes, so as to give myself courage to ask questions. This way, it makes it less difficult to approach people whenever I need help, allowing me to clarify any issues I have when I'm learning to progress further. Aside from that, being realistic with my goals helps with managing the stress. Whenever I plan schedules, I try to make my plans easily achievable so that I don't give up on it midway, so as to motivate me even when work feels difficult to focus on. Examples that this practice to would be with my homework.While these seem small and redundant, these helped me personally nurture a growth mindset, where patience and resilience is involved. The little things add up and eventually become good habits to adopt, thus, it is important to take time to keep consistent in noting bad behaviors to correct and to be self aware.

2a) Summary on setting grit goals

Setting grit goals can be determined by properly prioritizing them according to certain criteria, such as how significant/important it is to you, how interested you are in that goal and if they would be short or long term. Determining the importance of each goal is necessary to see which to prioritize as a top level goal, a mid level goal and a low level goal. We can also use a graph to help better visualize what goals would be of both high importance and high interest. Once we have those sorted out, we can then slowly work our way to the top level goal. Working from smaller goals helps us slowly build up progress towards higher level goals, and makes the process of achieving them more realistic and doable.Before learning about goal hierarchies, I would set ambitious goals for myself and push through them without much structure or planning. I often assumed that perseverance alone would be enough to reach the outcome I wanted. However, understanding the concept of a goal hierarchy has helped me realize that breaking down big goals into smaller, more practical steps not only makes the process more manageable but also reduces unnecessary stress. This approach enables me to stay motivated without overwhelming myself, and it helps me focus on consistent, meaningful progress rather than trying to force rapid achievement. It has also helped me realize that I should properly prioritize each goal accordingly instead of jumping between completing different goals at the same time, as I tend to have a bad habit of abandoning things mid way.

2b) Propose a personalized monitoring approach or strategies to keep sight of your grit goals

For one of my current biggest goals, I stated I wanted to get into NTU’s Art, Design and Media School to study Transversal Design. Some of the main limiting factors I have in achieving this goal include my procrastination, my lack of motivation, and my timeline of events. As of right now, I have a lot of work to catch up on and recently, my ability to motivate myself to do work has been especially low. These limiting factors make it difficult for me to stay consistent, which is one of the things I will need in order to prepare a strong portfolio and meet the admission requirements. However, I do enjoy designing and have works that are strong enough to showcase on my portfolio since it is one of my passions, which is one of my strengths. Another strength I have is being efficient and thorough when it comes to work, allowing for me to ensure that I have all my bases covered whenever i have to complete assignments. Lastly, if i were to complete my studies and stay consistent, I would be able to get married hassle free and start a new life.Using the grit goals concept, I can readjust my goal to make them more achievable. Instead of saying “finish my entire NTU portfolio this year,” I can break it down into a top-level goal supported by smaller mid- and low-level goals. For example, a revised goal would be to complete one portfolio piece every two weeks, and another would be to set aside 45 minutes each day for design practice. These smaller, consistent steps make the larger goal feel less overwhelming and more manageable to take on.The few ways I can do to monitor my is to create a weekly progress tracker where I check off each task I complete, so I have a clear visual reminder of how far into my goal I am. The second strategy is scheduling fixed work blocks into my calendar, treating them like appointments I must commit to. This helps me stay accountable and reduces the chance of procrastination. By monitoring my progress and adjusting my efforts when needed, I can stay on track and steadily work towards my long-term goal more efficiently.

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Grow with G.R.I.T. CA2 Submission

3a. Reflection on personal values and significance

Personal values are the beliefs that guide how we think, behave, and make decisions. They shape our goals, actions, and the kind of person we want to become. Knowing our values is important because they influence how we react to situations and how we handle challenges in life.The first value that matters most to me is honesty. I prefer people to be truthful with me, even if the truth may hurt, because being honest helps me understand my mistakes and improve myself. I also tend to be very honest with others, sometimes a bit too direct, but I believe clear communication prevents misunderstandings. This value shows strongly in group work and when receiving feedback. If something I did is not working, I would rather someone tell me directly so I can fix it. Practising honesty helps me build trust and maintain genuine relationships. This value connects to my goal of marriage, because a strong and healthy marriage depends heavily on communication and honesty between both partners.Another important value I hold is responsibility. Responsibility means taking ownership of my actions, meeting expectations, and being accountable for what I need to do. I show this value by completing my homework, staying organised, and admitting when I make mistakes. By being responsible, I build self-discipline and stay focused on my academic and personal goals. This value supports my goal of applying to NTU, as I need to be responsible for preparing my portfolio, doing proper research, and submitting everything on time.The last value I strongly believe in is understanding. To me, understanding means taking the time to consider someone else’s perspective before reacting. I try to listen carefully and think about how others feel. This helps me avoid conflicts and communicate more respectfully. Understanding also helps me work better with different people. This value connects to my goal of finding a stable job, because good teamwork and communication require understanding others in the workplace.

3b) Propose self-management strategies for dealing with stressful situations

One personal stressor I have is not submitting up my graded assignments on time. Often times, i get so overwhelmed with work that I procrastinate on the work, and end up panicking and overwhelming myself more by rushing everything at the last few days before the deadline. I also get stressed when people when conflicts happen in friendships or group work. The root cause comes from communication issues, overthinking others’ reactions, and fearing that I may disappoint or upset people. This makes me feel anxious and unsure of what to do, which is considered as a type of stress also known as destress, a negative kind of stress form thatHowever, there are ways to tackle these issues and recognize the signs before it spirals, such as planning back up plans/working on the work way before its due instead of mid way or towards the end, so that the early start helps account for any stress or worries that may cause procrastination. It is also good to mentally prepare ourselves before busy periods begin, such as allocating time to rest and to do work, so as to maintain a perfect balance. Lastly, it is also important to ensure we at least get in rest and eat up appropriately so that we have the energy to better tackle and handle our emotions.For managing stress I use a few self management strategies. One action I take is breaking tasks into smaller steps. Using checklists or mini deadlines helps me stay organized and reduces academic related stress. I also practice healthy communication, where I express concerns calmly and try to resolve misunderstandings quickly to avoid emotional build up. Lastly, I use coping techniques such as deep breathing, taking short breaks, listening to music, or going for walks when I feel overwhelmed. These actions help clear my mind and make stressful situations easier to handle. Overall, understanding my stressors and applying these strategies allows me to manage stress more effectively in my daily life.

3c) Summary of “My GRIT in action”

As of lesson 9, my understanding of grit has changed. At the start, I believed that being gritty meant setting clear goals, following them strictly, and staying consistent with the timeline I planned. I thought that as long as I did not give up, my goals would be achieved in a straight and simple way. However, as the lessons progressed, I realized that grit is not just about consistency or sticking to a plan. I learned that setbacks and learning curves are a normal part of the process. This shifted my mind-set, as I now understand that progress is not always linear, and improvement takes time and effort. Through this module, I have learned that being gritty also means being patient, investing time, and being open to learning from mistakes. Instead of feeling discouraged by setbacks, I now see them as part of growth. This change in mind-set has helped me better understand what grit truly means and how to apply it in my own goals.I am a straightforward and honest person, and I value honesty in many aspects of my life. I try to speak truthfully without being blunt, and this value strongly guides the way I think and make decisions. Because of this, my main guiding focus is to build a stable life and eventually a family with someone, while being able to live comfortably together not hiding anything. In response to this goal, I understand that I need to be responsible and patient in the choices I make now, alongside work through differences. Working towards this has been a long and sometimes tedious process, but I see it as necessary. One of my main steps is applying to universities so that I can gain deeper knowledge and more experience in my field. By doing so, I hope to polish my skills and prepare myself better for the working world. Alongside that, I also aim to learn how to balance work with my hobbies and personal life better. Although the journey can feel challenging at times, I try to stay focused on my long-term goals and values. This helps me stay motivated and reminds me why the effort I put in now is important for the future I want to build.Three key actions, strategies and behaviors I have committed to is to first: kickstart back my journey in indulging in my favorite hobby: art. I've made sure to make time to draw the things I love and started working more on doing rendered artworks as of recent. I was always scared to color out my drawings, but i've recently started taking steps to experiment rather than doubt my skills. It turned out to be more easier than I last remembered, and it helped bring my pieces closer to how I envisioned it. It was exhilarating to be able to pick up a pencil again and to do something I loved after neglecting it for so long. The second key being to stay positive. It has been a very rough journey for this key behavior. I often found myself spiraling and blaming myself a lot for complex challenges and issues i've faced. I've also hurt myself in the process as a result. But whenever I recover from these moments and replay my problems, I remembered this quote from a character I resonated with in a psychological horror game: "I have to believe our worst moments don't make us monsters." It had a very impactful and sentimental meaning to me, especially given the challenges I had faced growing up and being taught that failure always meant punishment or some form of degrading. It was comforting to always think back on that quote with each new mistake I make and to see it in a new light rather than coping in unhealthy ways. The last key I have committed myself to is to just improve and keep up with the good work in class. While it has been tough, I've been doing my best to not procrastinate on the work as much as I did for my internship, since I did not perform up to standard for my internship. To stay committed to this, I plan my time to where on free days, I'd take an hour or two to cover all the work I want to focus on ad then leave it for the next day if I lose motivation. At the very least this allows me to complete some work load without having to overwhelm myself.Overall, this module had thought me three important things about grit: Perseverance, Patience and Understanding. Most of the classes may have felt boring because we were constantly just writing and writing for every lesson. But it takes a lot to understand what we are writing inn our reflections and to be patient in seeing the fruits that we bear from learning this module, thus perseverance is important in seeing the benefits we get in attending this module. Every little thing may not mean much at the start, but as time progresses and we continue to persevere and stay consistent in the small improvements, we'll realize that small things build up to big impacts and outcomes in our lives when we are patient. I hope to eventually learn to improve on these three areas through my journey to the end of polytechnic and into University, through taking time for myself and simply taking care of my mental health, be it acknowledging I need breaks or understanding my mistakes. I was glad to be able to take this module and to learn more about how to tackle my flaws, it was a very insightful module that allowed me to step back and really think about the progress of my life. I am especially grateful for Coach Dean's guidance in this entire module and their patience for every student despite each of our differences. I aspire to nurture that same patience.

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