Week 6: Emotional Intelligence
EQ has been especially important in my academics, especially since I had no prior CS experience before coming to college, and overcoming the initial learning curve required balancing mental resilience and compassion for myself when things were not working out. Self regulation is exponentially important for me while debugging, because I could sit there and feel extremely frustrated till the point I want to quit( although sometimes taking a break is necessary) or I could be easy on myself and not stress myself out when I have encountered an obstacle. I have realized that most of the times, what makes the process so excruciating is really the inner voice in your mind when something goes wrong. It sounds like "why are you so slow" and "hurry it up" or " you can never do this stop trying" etc. This is a great opportunity to practice self compassion and meditation, where you don't identify with these thoughts, but simply become an observer. Doing so allows your mind to slow down and feel more clear, thus making the process easier on yourself while also increasing your efficiency. Similarly in group presentation, it is not often helpful to point fingers and completely ignore other collaborators. In my sophomore year, I had two classes that were entirely presentation based, everything about those classes was extremely open-ended, which resulted in a lot of discussions within the groups just simply trying to clarify what was going on. This made a lot of people very frustrated, including myself, but thinking back, it could have been better if everyone were more accommodating and not operating on the stress that hung over our heads to finish the project. It would have been a more enjoyable process if I could actively listen to other people's opinions or thoughts instead of absent-mindedly doing so. EQ means making sure people you are working with feels heard and seen. This is my number 1 take away from that experience.