Second In-Depth Blog Post (Check-In)

Welcome to my second In-Depth check-in blog post! Today we’ll go over my first meeting, the first three chapters of the book How To Have A Beautiful Mind, and my progress with my project thus far.

 

    My first meeting, although briefer than was recommended, was extremely productive. I already have an “assignment” of sorts from my mentor, we decided on a permanent meeting schedule, I started a document with a list of important skills and topics and I discussed my learning plans with my mentor. Later, I’ll explain the skills I discovered I should learn about (which are also explained in the document). I plan to take notes on the skills before my next meeting so I can excel at the assignment my mentor has given me. Also, my mentor is awesome! I’ve known her for a while but it was really nice talking to her again. I’ve made lots of progress in defining my plan, and I am excited for next week, because I’ll likely make even more progress actually executing it. I’m looking forward to developing a comprehensive roadmap of my project and developing my skills next Wednesday!

 

    As for the Beautiful Mind section, while I didn’t record my meeting (it was the first meeting and we were working out the details), I took a few notes and I’ll apply them to the sections of the Beautiful Mind book.

    To begin with “How to Agree”, well, this one is pretty easy. I agreed with nearly everything my mentor said because not only was our conversation pretty brief, but we were also to the point and I understand that my mentor has a lot of knowledge and experience in this field (she’s been taking super expensive singing classes since she was a kid, studied voice in university, even majoring in it, and has been working as a choir teacher for years) and to think I could argue against so much experience would be pretty narcissistic. I understand that agreeing with everything my mentor says would mean I don’t contribute very much, but I’m not in the thick of the project yet. An example of a time where I looked for points to agree with and understood my mentors perspective from within her logic bubble was when she said that I should sing something extremely simple, like a nursery rhyme, to work on my first skill next week. At first the idea confused me a bit, but she explained that in order to work on breath control and “vocal production” (how to use air to create sound as effectively as possible) I should start really simple and with a song that I could (in theory) work my way up to singing all in one breath. It’s very intriguing, and I think knowing where she was coming from, as someone who has a lot of experience dealing with a student who she’s never heard sing before, it was a really fair point and I totally agreed once I thought about that.

    Next is the “How to Disagree” chapter. I didn’t really disagree with anything my mentor said. I understand that my mentor has a lot of experience and I didn’t have much to challenge her about, we were just having a discussion about our plans and expectations for the mentorship. I didn’t disagree to boost my ego or anything, because I understood that I was the one that was being taught. There are no particular examples of me disagreeing during the meeting, because I really didn’t disagree with anything my mentor said. Obviously once I start really meeting with my mentor and talking to her for an hour every week, disagreements may arise, but for now I’m just agreeing because I have no reason to disagree. The disagreeing to show a different personal experience point also applies to my example for the next chapter, however.

    Thirdly, I applied the “How to Differ” chapter when my mentor and I were joking about how I would always do tasks at the last minute when it came to the girl’s choir. I explained that I was always forgetting stuff, and she said that the explanation also made sense. She recommended I use my Reminders app, and I agreed with that. I find, the app annoying but knew it would be kind of dumb to explain that difference, so I let it rest because I knew she was coming from a different point of view. I applied the idea that differences may arise from a different point of view, because even though I understood the situation of me doing assignments at the last minute differently, I understood that that was just her perspective on the situation and continued with the joke. Honestly though, I have developed the habit of leaving assignments till the last minute, it was just the particular context where it was me forgetting everything.

 

    Next week, I will make sure I find 3 separate examples of my learning in these areas, I will complete the assignment I’ve been given and I will continue to make progress with my very detailed plan (updating my document as I go). I’m looking forward to having more goals next week!

   

    In conclusion, I have already made lots of progress and learned a lot from my mentor, I am learning to apply the principles of the Beautiful Mind book to my learning, and I am looking forward to doing even more for this project next week! I have enjoyed the progress I have made so far and have learned so much about the subject I’m studying (singing) and how to learn effectively from someone else!