Business Management & Accounting: Personal Reflective Statement, Sem 1

This personal reflective statement reflects on a student's experience in a Business Management/Accounting course during their first semester. The student initially pursued the course for its lucrative career prospects but gained a deeper understanding of the field's significance. The statement details the knowledge acquired in collaboration, teamwork, and project management, including an analysis of climate change's impact on business. It highlights the application of the Gibbs reflective cycle for improved teamwork and the benefits of mindfulness in managing stress. The student also reflects on the ‘#Be Your Best’ event, drawing inspiration from Peter Bakare's story, and discusses the development of confidence through team-building exercises. Overall, the statement emphasizes the importance of reflection and its impact on personal and academic growth.

Running head: PERSONAL REFLECTIVE STATEMENT 1
Personal Reflective Statement
Name
Institutional Affiliation
Date

PERSONAL REFLECTIVE STATEMENT 2
Personal Reflective Statement
I enrolled in the Business Management/Accounting course in my higher education
because of this field being a lucrative profession with high demand all over the world. This
career profession also touches on every aspect of the modern human society and it is very diverse
with premium salary, creating an avid passion for studying this course (Jiambalvo, 2019; Borges
et al., 2017). Therefore, I was driven into this career option to attain what it could offer without
considering how I could sharpen and hone my abilities and be a better business or account
manager instead of making the potential gains the main purpose. As I began my first semester, I
lost this prospect as I gained insight into what this course entailed how much it meant to me as
an individual. In business management, I gained the knowledge and expertise in collaboration
and teamwork, people management, project management, self-awareness and emotional
intelligence, as well as resilience. In our last project that my team and I were assigned, we
evaluated and assessed how climate change affects business growth and development. Some of
the critical elements that we were able to discover are that climate change has the potential to
either slow or speed up the economic growth in the coming decades. According to a research
conducted by Amran et al. (2016), it argues that temperature changes could reduce incomes
globally by 23% by 2100 and that an increase of 4.5 degree Celsius in global temperatures could
reduce the global domestic product by $81 trillion. Thus, these detrimental changes in universal
climate condition affect individual and corporate companies since unpredictable weather changes
will only intensify these effects and reduce the availability of raw materials by disrupting the
supply chains.
Throughout the semester 1, I was able to learn the Gibbs reflective cycle, which has
enabled me to improve on how to approach my team members. This is because this cycle has

PERSONAL REFLECTIVE STATEMENT 3
instilled the knowledge of taking each other feelings and perspectives on board when delegating
roles and responsibilities (Sekarwinahyu et al., 2019; Young, 2019). Besides, the understanding
of various steps of the reflective cycle itself has encouraged my team and me to think
systematically about the best way to face life experiences, activities, or even events (Tanaka,
Okamoto & Koide, 2018). Thus, I can think about my experience or activity in more detail, thus
allowing me to be contented of my actions and better able to adjust and change my behaviours
by observing and evaluating both the positive and the negative sides of the experience and
learning from it. Also, mindfulness theory expertise that I grabbed from semester one has
enabled me to understand the mental and physical health of people. Concerning the example
from the ‘#Be Your Best’ event, I came to realise that if workers within a firm are happy when
carrying out their daily activities, then it is highly expected that they will apply more efforts into
the job as they will be passionate to thrive and better themselves while achieving the firm’s
goals. Generally, mindfulness is the essential human awareness to fully understand the present
doings by understanding one’s current situation and not overly reactive by what’s happening in
one’s surroundings (Wielgosz et al. 2019). Through this beneficial and insightful knowledge, it
has aided me so much as a student and as a future employee in understanding the best ways to
reduce stress which is a significant workforce issue in an organization. Also, as an individual, I
can manage to work properly in any environment as this understanding allows me to grow as an
active person who can face any issues that may arise at any time (Rahl et al., 2017). Thus, I can
recommend the theory to each individual as a necessary tool that can aid him or her overcome
the difficult times.
During that semester at the university, it has been a lucrative experience into gaining the
knowledge as to what reflection is, as well as its importance to me as a student and as a future

PERSONAL REFLECTIVE STATEMENT 4
employer or employee. From the semester, we covered the ‘Be the Best Event’ event and we
discussed the various ways on how Peter Bakare, the founder of NutriTroops’ reflected his life.
His reflection inspired me so much and decided to take a step in understanding that hard work
pays and it is never too late to change one’s goals and desires as long as the determination and
drive to make a change. Peter was a basketball player who actively listened to his coach’s
advises and upon using his resilience he gained in basketball, he thrived so well at the game of
volleyball. Interestingly, he ended up being signed to join the national team in the 2012 national
Olympics.
Notably, the fact that we split up into various groups during the ‘#be the best event’, the
groups allowed us to confide in each other, allowing us to trust and work together. We were
involved in various activities such as memory tasks that enabled us to build up our tasks within a
reasonable time. The interesting part of our group was the team-building exercise that had to be
presented in front of a room of peers which no one knew each other. Thus, none of the members
of the group was willing to present because they felt that they did not have the confidence to do
so. Being the shy member of the group, I tried in as much as possible fail to present, but through
the team-building exercises, I gained the confidence and worked together to help each other out.
Conclusively, semester one has been enjoyable and educative. Through gaining expertise
in reflection technique, I can evaluate my progress as a student and achieve success in my daily
targets. Therefore, I have learned how to collaborate in teamwork activities and gained
inspiration from the ‘Be Your Best’ event example.

PERSONAL REFLECTIVE STATEMENT 5
References
Amran, A., Ooi, S. K., Wong, C. Y., & Hashim, F. (2016). Business strategy for climate change:
An ASEAN perspective. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental
Management, 23(4), 213-227.
Borges, J. C., Ferreira, T. C., de Oliveira, M. S. B., Macini, N., & Caldana, A. C. F. (2017).
Hidden curriculum in student organizations: Learning, practice, socialization and
responsible management in a business school. The International Journal of Management
Education, 15(2), 153-161.
Jiambalvo, J. (2019). Managerial accounting. John Wiley & Sons.
Rahl, H. A., Lindsay, E. K., Pacilio, L. E., Brown, K. W., & Creswell, J. D. (2017). Brief
mindfulness meditation training reduces mind wandering: the critical role of acceptance.
Emotion, 17(2), 224.
Sekarwinahyu, M., Rustaman, N. Y., Widido, A., & Riandi, R. (2019, February). Development
of problem-based learning for the online tutorial program in plant development using
Gibb’s reflective cycle and e-portfolio to enhance reflective thinking skills. In Journal of
Physics: Conference Series (Vol. 1157, No. 2, p. 022099).
Tanaka, M., Okamoto, R., & Koide, K. (2018). Relationship between Reflective Practice Skills
and Volume of Writing in a Reflective Journal. Health, 10(3), 282.
Wielgosz, J., Goldberg, S. B., Kral, T. R., Dunne, J. D., & Davidson, R. J. (2019). Mindfulness
Meditation and Psychopathology. Annual review of clinical psychology, 15, 285-316.
Young, A. (2019). Should we grade reflective writing?. The postgraduate medical journal,
postgradmedj-2019.