Semadra Alsabti

Passport

Welcome to my IBIS passport page. On this page I will share my reflections and assesments from the courses.

Term 1 courses:

What's in my backpack

Subjects

One of the first words in this class were “maximizing your potential.” In this class we learn to look closer at our intrinsic motivation, get a better and deeper understanding of our brain, how to express our qualities by having a greater understanding of who we are and how we should reflect on our life and how we should take control of it.

We did a personality test in class and the results said that I am a defender. The strengths of a defender are supportive, reliable and patient, imaginative and observant, enthusiastic, loyal and hard working and having good practical skills. A defender’s weaknesses are being humble and shy, taking things too personally, being private and very sensitive, easy to overload themselves and afraid to change.

We were encouraged to search for our why’s, what’s and how’s; I believe in…(passion), I aim for… (business dream), I am good at…(talent, your unique selling point), I bring…(what do you bring to the table?) We also took a look in reflecting and how you can use it to develop yourself.

Reflection

The subjects we talked about in class are the kind of subject I never talk about in public. Of course, I thought of them but I never gave it a second look before.

We talked about connecting the dots by looking backwards and that it somehow will connect if you trust in something – your gut or destiny. Looking back in the past knowing what brought me to where I am now by connecting the dots. Quitting IBMS last year was the worst feeling ever back then but when I look back at it, it gave me new opportunities for work and it gave me an insight of myself about what kind of study suits me and it made me choose IBIS because it gives me a big opportunity to learn and to develop yourself and I found out that my interest is there.

From the results of our why’s, what’s and how’s, we had to make an elevator pitch and we had to present that in class. This was really hard because I had a hard time describing how I feel because I wasn’t sure yet. I started brainstorming and it really helped me writing down my elevator pitch. This class was very helpful.

We had to write a weekly reflection essay about the what’s in my backpack class and what your new insight were. This helped me to dive deeper in my thoughts and dare to talk more about my feelings, which I usually never did before.

Thinking and reasoning

Subjects

In this course we had to write about our experiences in and outside class where we dived deeper into our own thoughts and made connections with the thinking and reasoning subjects from class.

We talked about the types of thinking, the system 1, the fast thinking, which we use all the time and it is more based on feelings. The system 2 thinking is the slow thinking, you put effort in to it and it is more logical. We gave these types of thinking a deeper dive and we have learned more about our own thoughts.

Another subject we talked about emotional intelligence which is a way of understanding, recognizing and managing how we think, feel and act. It defines how and what we learn; it allows us to set priorities; it determines the majority of our daily actions. Those of our own selves and the ones around us.

We learned more about critical thinking, which means making reasoned judgments that are clear, open minded and informed by evidence. Reviewing all the information and making changes where possible. When thinking critical you rely on reason rather than emotion.

Reflection

Diving deeper in subject you never thought about which happen in your life on a daily basis (most of them) was a very learnable journey. This class is the class I mostly liked. We had to write our own blog and that gave me a push to make people aware of what I am doing, so I took a dare and published it online on my social media. This gave me the opportunity to take a seat and to read more about the subjects after class to understand what I am talking about and what to put on my blog.

I’ve bought the book Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. This is a must read book! I found this book so interesting because it made me think and learn more about the way I think and how I can improve my decisions-making to not mess it up.  

Talking about critical thinking which made me realize that it is one of the most important skills someone needs to present a perfect argument, presenting a strong argument to support your point of view by using credible and valid evidence. Since this class on I’ve tried to be critical about some things where I have to give my second thought to, thinking before talking. Talking about personal things and school work. For example, it taught me to back up everything I write on my blogs, explaining why I think like that. I am a really easy going person and I have realized that I’ve said some stuff in my past that don’t have a good argument or evidence so this was really helpful.

I am talking about all these subjects on my blog which I recommend to read on www.semadraalsabti.wordpress.com

Information Skills

Subjects

In this class we talked about how to use google in an easy and fast way by learning some tips and tricks such as some search tactics or search strategies. First looking at what kind of information you need and which subject terms to use when searching for the information. Where do you look up the information and it the information you have found useful or reliable?

Using some tips and tricks to such as boolean operation which are and(+), or and not(-), a truncate, a symbol to search for various ending of a word. For example “Europ*” will find “Europe”, “European” etc., a wildcar operator or joker, a symbol to replace one or more letters. For example: “organi?ation”, which will show “organization” (American) and “Organisation” (English), a exact phrase by using “”;“Oil shock crisis”, and by selection operators such as ~,…, define:, site:, allintitle:.

Reflection

The two first classes weren’t that interesting but from the third class on we started to make mind maps for the the end assessment we had to do for the International World of Business class. This was helpful because it gave me the time to do so during class hours so I could focus on making the poster and how to present it.

I did not change my searching ways of looking up information through the information skills classes nor did I learn new tips and tricks because I already knew these before.

HTML/CSS

Subjects

In this class we learned to work with HTML and CSS code to build a well-functioning and well-organized website by using valid codes

reflection

When we started the first class of HTML I got really existed because I think it is really awesome to get to know how to build up a website. But I really struggled with my website when we started to using CSS. I got confused with what codes I had to use and how to make it look appropriate for the viewers. I didn’t know how to make it responsive so I asked the teacher about it and I watched youtube tutorials to understand it myself. Without the struggle, there won’t be progress. I have learned to make a appropriate and well-organized passport with all the CSS and HTML codes needed within!

Chosen NLU's

I was really happy with the NLU’s options and I made a list with the NLU’s which I thought that were interesting for me to choose. After making a list I read the information about the classes and I am well-informed about what to expect. I chose 4 NLU’s.

My first choice was speaking with confidence. I chose this because I have a struggle with presenting without getting a black-out during my presentation. I can’t stand the thought of everyone looking at me while presenting, it is really weird but I get this thought most of the time when presenting in front of the class and that is the moment when I get a black-out or forget half of my text. I want to stay connected while presenting by learning how to stay focus on the subject I am presenting. I hope to learn this in this class because I think it is really important for now and for the future to have the ability to express your subject in such a way that people who are listening think that you are confident in what you are saying.

I have decided to take take Shoot raw: photography 101 as a NLU because I think that photography is art of observation, everything has to do with the way you look at pictures. I’ve always been interesting in taking pictures of things I find beautiful. I always take pictures in a normal way but I never use tools which we will use during this class. I don’t think I even know these functions such as working with Adobe Light room 5 to post-process pictures. I am really curious to learn these subjects during these hours of Shoot raw to develop my way of taking pictures.

I chose Photoshop as my third NLU because you can see that nowadays everyone uses Photoshop as a (non)professional way to design pictures through Photoshop. Looking at pictures on social media which most of them are photo shopped made me realize that it is a huge way of designing pictures. I’ve never worked with Photoshop so this is really new for me. I hope to learn the basics of Photoshop so I can use them for my website or blog pictures later on.

The last NLU I chose is magazine making & innovation, which isn’t my best skill but I want to learn something new which is not in my comfort zone at the moment. I always read Vogue, which is my favorite life-time magazine. While reading the content of this NLU I thought to myself how come that Vogue is such a huge magazine and how do they know what a good eye-catcher will be on the front page or what should be on the last pages and what should be on the first pages? I hope I will find out these questions and how they do it by diving deeper in to the senses of magazine making and how it developed itself. I think that this give myself the opportunity to develop myself in something I am not really good at and to learn something new about subject I’ve never looked at.

Counting all the NLU’s hours I am taking makes them 84 hours, which is exactly the hours needed for term 1. I am really curious about how I will develop myself during term 2 with these NLU’s chosen.

IBIS in general reflection

So far the thing I learned from the first journey at IBIS is daring to talk about myself. Which was the most challenging one for me. I’ve never liked talking about personal stuff in public. I don’t even talk about it with my friends or family, I like to keep some stuff to myself which I know that isn’t always a good thing. IBIS, especially PSD what’s in my backpack class and thinking & reasoning class where I started my blog to talk about these stuff, helped me to open up myself more so people get to know my journey that made me who I am today. I am really thankful for having these classes on the first term at IBIS because it helped me to feel comfortable in the IBIS area. This is just the first term of my 4 years learning journey at IBIS.