Journal Entries: Professional Development

This document presents a series of journal entries detailing a student's experience completing four assignments over twelve days. The entries chronicle the challenges and successes encountered while working on tasks related to communication, writing, email etiquette, process description, ethics in technology, Rawls' theory of justice, whistleblowing, and the 'winner-take-all' society. The student meticulously documents their planning, execution, and reflections on each assignment, highlighting difficulties encountered in research, writing, and time management. The journal entries provide a detailed account of the learning process, including collaborative efforts with peers and the insights gained from exploring various concepts and theories. The student's reflections reveal a growing understanding of professional skills and the complexities of real-world work challenges.

Journal Entry
Journal entry 1 - Day 1
On this day, the four assignments that were given were explored in depth to understand the
activities that I was required to do. These included activities related communication and writing,
email, process description writing, ethics in technology and related concepts and theories such as
Rawl’s theory of justice whistleblowing, and winner-take-all-society belief. I created a plan on how I
would be studying and revising to attempt this assignment and the time I would be devoting to each
activity. I decided to divide the four assignments into 10 days with each assignment completion in
two daisy’s. The first two assignments had 4 parts to complete that I decided to finish two parts in
one day. As the Assignment 8 also had a video lecture to watch which I found could be time
consuming so I added an extra day to the assignment and planned to take 3 days for that
assignment. Also, the last assignment needed me to explore a book “Winners-take-all” which was
again time consuming so I devoted a full day to it and thus, planned to give three days.
Journal entry 2: Day 2
On this day I worked out 2 parts of the assignment four that included comparison of written and oral
skill needs and exploration of the characteristics of effective writing teams. There were specific
questions to be answered as mentioned in the assignment such as exploring the types of projects
that required collaboration and primary attributes of teams to be discussed. As per me, coordination
was something that could be needed for any project and thus, identifying specific types that would
need higher level of coordination was a brain juggle. When exploring attributes of effective team.
Most times, I would get general data on project teams and not specific to writing teams so I had to
do brainstorming with peers to get to the solution.
Journal entry 3: Day 3 & 4
On this day, I had to identify examples taken from media or other publications reflecting
misrepresentation or distortions. I found this part very difficult as I was unable to find the pieces
online. So, I explored the articles already covering mistakes in media and found a few to give as
examples. However, there were different categories of examples that I had to choose which I found
difficult and could not complete the same day and it got spilled over to the next day. Although, in
writing the part was small yet in research it took much time and even involved discussions with
peers and I could complete the part by the afternoon on the day 4. Now, I had only half a day
remaining to complete the newspaper checklist assignment that needed me to write a letter. This
was simple and I completed it on the same day.
Journal entry 4: Day 5
On this day, I worked on the assignment 8 involving identification of emails and text issues. I found
some common problems such as failure of audience consideration, lack of flow or grammar or
language errors. I was done with the part A of the assignment by afternoon and it was pretty easy.
Then I moved on to the next part which involved writing the process description. As this assignment
was mostly focused on the writing work, I decided to choose a content writing agency as an example
and tried drafting process description for multiple scenarios. I chose four such scenarios and started
to write but it was time consuming and took a lot of considerations while imagining the processes. I
could not finish it today.
Journal entry 5: Day 6

I continued working on the process assignment and used creating flow charts in rough to simplify my
work. Although, this appeared easy at the start but by this time, I could realize that writing a process
description was not easy and I had to do a lot of back and forth to ensure that everything was
accurate and all things were covered. I could finish the assignment only by evening and had hardly
any time to attempt the next part of the assignment. Fortunately, I had already given this
assignment an extra day for the video so I shifted the second part to the next day.
Journal entry 6: Day 7
On this day, I worked on the part where I had to explore another process description text that was
difficult to understand. I had no place to start and randomly started to read about new technologies.
I found one article on guru99 website which talked about data mining and I found it difficult to
follow. I decided to take it as the example and started to work on it. I used the guideline provide to
us in the course to identify the weaknesses in the article related to content, organization, style and
design. A major problem discovered was the lack of audience consideration that was assumed o be
technical already. I could finish this part by evening and started to listen to the video after that.
However, I could not really analyse the video the first time of listening and I need to go for it one
more time so I decided to do it the next day.
Journal entry 7: Day 8
I watched the TED talk video chosen the previous day again and this time with the checklist in my
hand. I ticked on the checklist whatever I found available in the video and later wrote my
observations in the textual format. I covered points related to content, organization, and style. While
the video had most good aspects covered, there were also a few weaknesses as per the checklist
such as lack of consideration of perspectives opposing growth mindset which was the topic of
discussion and lack of summarization of the points covered at the end. I could finish watching video
and writing summary by the end of the day and did not have time left for the next part of the
assignment so I had to shift it to the next day.
Journal entry 8: Day 9
On this day, I had to explore the history of information storage and retrieval. While doing this it was
difficult for me to find the exact text on information retrieval and rather ended up discussing the
history starting from the time the writing system was first invented in 8th century. It was a long
journey in history and it also took me time to read through the history text and solve the challenge. I
could still read and finish the assignment by evening and moved on to the second part.
Unfortunately, the second part was more complicated than I was expecting. I had already exhausted
my days in the planner and was under pressure so I was decided to complete the part the same
night. I read the theory and applied it to my experience. This was difficult part yet I could complete it
by late evening.
Journal entry 9: Day 10
On this day, I explored the concept of internet addiction which was the last part of the third
assignment which was comparatively easier as I could easily find studies related to the concept. So, I
finished it by afternoon and started working on the next assignment and its first part involving
considerations of privacy. I explored the research studies on privacy and got a lot of stuff to read and
learn from. I could finish it by late evening and was keen on taking up the next part which was
whistleblowing. However, the concept was rather less known to me so I decided to extent one day. I
had kept a buffer of two days for editing and corrections so I could utilize the time.

Journal entry 10: Day 11
I read about whistleblowing and learnt that it is a tool used by people for alerting people or
authorities when something wrong happening in the organization. I could easily understand the
concept and write about it. I found it very effective in keeping control on wrong doings of the
people. However, I also felt that if not checked, it could be misused by shrewd people to trap others.
I finished this part by evening and started reading the book Winner Takes all Society. I read the book
for long but did not have the time or energy left for writing so I decided to take the next buffer day
for that.
Journal entry 11: Day 12
I answered the questions asked in the assignment about winner-take-all-society theory. I do not
completely believe that it is the case everywhere but yes in some places where competition is used,
winner matters while others despite the efforts are forgotten. Personally, I have also felt myself as a
person left out because I did not win or got the first place anywhere. I finished whole work and
added conclusion to the assignment. By this time, I feel that I have gained a lot of learning from the
assignments. They helped me understand how challenges at real work are and how they can be
tacked. How time can be managed. Despite the spill over of assignments, I now feel confident that I
can do it better next time.