01.28 Blog

 We began the class sharing what comes to mind when we think of “skills.” I really like one of my classmates perspective’s, who shared that when they think of skills they think of it as something that differentiates people from one another. I like this because it dives deeper into the purpose of skills, beyond them just people traits or behaviors people a person excels at. The definition of skills according to the video we watched is the ability to obtain knowledge, to do something well. Professor Sanchez added that you may love something, but not have the skills for it, which I agree with, even though it can be unfortunate at times. For example, I love to play volleyball even though I am not good at it. We also learned that there are soft skills and hard skills. Soft skills are interpersonal skills that can be used for any job, but must be practiced and are harder to evaluate. Hard skills are skills required for a specific job, can be learned from school and are easy to measure. In the exercise we did, one of the episodes I wrote about was when the club I am in at University raised over $100k for children's cancer research in one night. Our goal was originally $80k, which we worried that we wouldn’t achieve, but I switched to a more optimistic mindset, and encouraged others, which led to a better outcome! This activity helped me recognize how my skills help contribute to achievements.