Navigating Ambiguity (with student comments in quotes)

In terms of learning to deal with ambiguity, students said the following:

"I think the class has done a good job of encouraging us to ask questions and keep engaging even if we are unsure of ourselves."

"I find ambiguity stressful without explicit step-by-step guidance, and probably need to work on that! This is something I already knew a little bit, but hadn't really properly experienced.

"There is always a pattern somewhere. Whether in the data itself or in the manner in which it was manipulated, you can always find a way to comb through options and observations and gather meaning from that."

"The large semester project is really what comes to mind here. Navigating the whole process of finding data, figuring out what variables you want, organising it, and then analysing seems like nothing but navigating ambiguous contexts. It's building up all of these skills that we can practice in our homeworks to apply it to this big problem."

I have always valued my experience with programming and modeling because of the emotional development it has prompted in me. Whatever I do or don't know academically now, I am a better person having learned the patience and focus needed for these sorts of modeling tasks. Students seemed to learn about themselves through the process too.

"I've found that I have a "go-with-the-flow" attitude for better or worse. I find that this class has required me to flex that attitude."

"I've learned, while I have some ability, the tolerance runs short. After a 3-5 stackexchange threads I'm fairly spent and will try new approaches. In that way, I am honing my flexibility skills, ability to jump between options as I see fit."

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