JASMINE MANDAWE
University of Waterloo Student
INTERVIEW
Explain how you handled a situation when you had to make an important ethical decision.
In my previous job during the summer of 2015 as a Soccer Coach for a company called Playball, I had to deal with many difficult situations with the children. I had the responsibility of showing leadership towards my students, which meant being a good role model for them. During my time as a Coach there was this one time that I had to deal with a serious situation that involved making an ethical decision. This problem involved two children who would constantly fight during classes.
At first I tried to deal with the situation by continuously breaking the fights off and informing the whole class that fighting it never the solution to a problem. I would also try to keep both boys apart from each other during the classes. This solution seemed to work the first few weeks but they quickly found their way back into fighting. Due to both boys’ consistency in hurting each other, which prevented me from teaching the other students in the class, I had to schedule a time and date to meet with the children’s parents regarding the situation. The meeting was schedule because the situation needed to be addressed to the parents and I had to make the decision of whether or not the boys needed to be removed from my class. Before meeting with the parents of the boys, I spoke to the other Coaches asking if any of them would be willing to have another boy join their class so that I could have the boys separated. Luckily, one of the Coaches agreed to take on one more kid. When I went in for the meeting with both parents I shared this problem with them and asked if one of the parents were willing to have their child switch Coaches for the safety and health of their children. Both parents were very understanding and were willing to switch Coaches.
In the end, I had one of the boys in my class and another Coach took my previous student. This led to smooth classes without fighting, and both boys enjoyed their time at Playball with their Coaches. This situation helped me gain a lot of confidence and leadership through having to speak to the parents and fix the problem.
Describe a time when you didn't succeed at something you were trying to accomplish.
In my many years of interviews and applying for jobs there was this one time in September 2014 where I desperately wanted a particular job and didn’t get it. This was a Graphic Design job for the club Fashion for Change at the University of Waterloo. This position only had 6 openings but many applicants, which meant I was in in a tough situation because of the large amount of competition. This position required making posters, banners, and logo designs, which is something I have great experience with.
I did a lot of preparing to help me get this job: hours of interview practices, editing my resume, and printing out examples of my previous work. All my preparation resulted in me not receiving the job. I was gutted and had such disappointment in myself, but when I was told the news I simply thanked the President of the club and assured them that it was still a great experience applying for them. After realizing that this wasn’t the only job out there, I quickly starting preparing again and searching for new jobs similar to this one.
Although I did not get the job it made me understand how job placements work and that things do not always go the way you want it to. From being declined of the job I also gained self-confidence and motivation to prepare myself even harder for the next job I wanted to apply for.
Tell me about a time when you needed to make a difficult decision in school and what was the result.
Group projects are always a hit or miss, you either work well with your team or things go terribly wrong. In a previous school project at the University of Waterloo during term 1B, my classmates and I were randomized into groups of four or five. Unfortunately, I was only put into a group of three while every other group had either four or five students. After discussing the situation with our Professor, she refused to switch groups around and made us complete the project with only three members. We were at a total disadvantage, but continued to stay positive and divide the project equally amongst us.
The project wasn’t too hard to plan out and organize with only three people. We managed to get a lot done while being in a disadvantage with only three members. Throughout the process of the project one of our group members stopped replying to our messages and wasn’t keeping us informed of her past in the project. After a week of not hearing from her she messaged us saying she was no longer in the program, and wouldn’t be working on the project with us any longer. After hearing this we were confused and upset but quickly reorganized our work to be split between the two of us now. We informed out teacher about this misunderstanding and how we only had two members now and she did not have much say in anything other than we needed to make sure we still got everything done.
My group member and I felt very discouraged and thought we were in a very unfair position. Although we felt this way we knew we had to finish the work off and create an intriguing presentation. In the end, we managed we complete everything on time because of our organizational and time management skills. Our presentation ended well and received great feedback from our other classmates.
Tell me about a time in a recent school term when you needed to meet several hard-stop deadlines and how you handled it.
Just last week, October 5, 2015, was a very stressful day for me because I had five big assignments due that evening. I am a very organized person; I like to write my schedule everyday in detailed time slots.
As I knew there were deadlines for all these assignments, I started the assignments right when they were assigned. Even after starting each assignment early, I still felt very crammed near the due date. On my free time before and after classes I would work on each assignment, but since it was still far away from the deadlines I took my time, not realizing the days would catch up to me. Although I had almost all projects mostly completed I was very crammed because each project was time consuming and I only had two days left. After realizing I was taking too long and becoming too much of a perfectionist with my work I began to work at a faster and more efficient pace. I organized my work by writing down everything that needed to be finished and when I would finish them. I cancelled all my plans with friends and took no spare time to work out or watch TV because I knew I had to finish my assignments.
In the end, I completed everything on time and I was very proud with the work I finished. After this day and handing all my assignments in, I realized how important time management and organizational skills are when it comes to due dates. As for next time, I will make sure I stay productive and don’t take too long with areas that don’t need to take up time.