more skills I actually enjoy using

I meant to write a post after I spent a morning a couple of weeks ago making an excel template to automatically do all the calculations once I pasted in my data. That was fun. This post, however, is motivated by the homework I have to complete for the careers workshop I'm participating in.

Last week, they gave us a list of different skills and we had to tick the ones we thought we had. I actually ticked more than I was expecting, but now we have to pick 10 skills we enjoy and write down examples of times we actually used them. That's a lot harder. Trying to think of examples makes me think I don't have the skill after all.

Even harder, for another exercise we have to come up with seven "success stories" describing experiences where we did something successful that we enjoyed and were proud of. I'm really having trouble with that. So far, my experiences are things like "knit argyle socks", "stained and finished my furniture by hand" and "got to an online Scrabble rating above 1100".

Even if my difficulty with thinking of examples makes me feel bad about my time in grad school, the ones I did come up with aren't entirely useless for the exercise. I didn't realise that I liked making things so much until looking at the list. I like having something finished I can point to and think "I did that". I think that's part of what I like about making Excel templates, too. I wasn't sure I really enjoyed the process of sanding my furniture over and over, or knitting and pulling out the same bit of sock multiple times, but I do like seeing visible progress, so I think it still counts.

I did do well in undergrad and I mostly enjoyed that, but I'm not sure it counts. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure why not. Maybe because I always did things at the last minute and crammed for exams rather than studying properly and retaining the information. I'm not sure the whole of undergrad counts as a single experience, either. Same for tutoring maths as an undergrad. I really enjoyed the times when I could explain something so the students got it, but I can't remember specific instances so I don't know how often that happened.

Okay, I added a few more and this is making me wonder again if I would enjoy research more if I could just make myself do more so that I could actually finish things. I did enjoy writing my honours thesis, the discussion part at least. I liked finding connections between my results and the literature and pulling it all together into a coherent model. Of course, that model was disproven a week after I submitted when another paper came out... And I really didn't like doing the experiments themselves that much even then.

I once spent a couple of hours translating between two lab members who were getting offended at what they each thought the other was saying, even though that really wasn't what they were saying at all. I managed to eventually get them to understand that neither actually thought the other was a bad scientist, they just disagreed on the direction a project should go. Usually I hate getting involved in conflict, but I did kind of enjoy mediating. I don't know if that's something I should put on the list or not, since it's not something I've done more than once even.

Now that I have enough experiences to list, I'm having trouble listing the values and interests that "they reveal about me". Although, values and interests are on the agenda for tomorrow, so maybe that can wait.

Here's my list of skills I enjoy using:

1. explain difficult ideas, complex topics
2. use technology for statistical analysis
3. gather information from a number of sources
4. create efficient systems
5. creat computer generated charts
6. calculate, perform mathematical computations
7. edit and proofread written material
8. analyse data
9. classify and sort/systematise information
10. keep accurate and complete financial records

I keep thinking of all the things I could say to qualify those, but I guess I should stop and go to bed.