Lessons & Reflection: A Research Assistant at the Schulich School of Business - me!
Let's start with positivity: This marks my 10th post! It’s the little victories… :)
Sometimes life just happens to you.. But when those pieces come together- it's a nice feeling.
I say this because I've always felt like coding would be an important skill to learn. To understand the underlying cogs of what powers our everyday lives from our phones to almost every piece of technology we rely on - would be a powerful tool, and an effective way to shift the way I understand tech. It was purely luck, when I found out that the advanced personal finance class I signed up for - was the first of it's kind. A dual coding/finance course that was offered for the first time - and we were the guinea pig class of 8. The plan was to explore finance concepts - but explore and solve various issues through R studios- the coding program of choice.
I was fortunate enough after 4 month course to land a position with my professor as a Research Assistant - focused on analyzing conditional life expectancy and mortality tables.
So what did I learn?
A. Reach out to your profs - Through my four years of uni, I've spoken to only handful of profs, and I'm very glad I reached out to this one. It started as me asking him the process behind publishing books, because it's something I want to do in the future. One thing led to another, and he brought up a summer opportunity/job to work with him on his book in the summer.
Funny how things happen. Most professors that I've had the pleasure of learning from come from a very rewarding career path, and they have very valuable experience. I wish I had reached out and picked at their brains more. If I hadn't reach out - perhaps this article or page wouldn't have been here at all.
B. Show them your drive - This is specific to the situation...I'll explain. I really wanted this job, because as a published author of 16+ books, I knew my prof. could expose me to the world of writing and publishing. But sometimes for many of my friends and myself included, there's an internal struggle between going all out for something we want, and fearing how desperate we look in pursuit of our goal.
In these situations, I've always leaned towards doing what I have to, but in this specific case I think I had it boiled down to one line I repeated in my head. Would I rather look desperate and get the job, and try to relax and possible lose it to someone else. No way I was going to let the latter happen. The posting required a resume only - so I decided to submit my resume, a personalize cover letter, and 6 pages of coding in both R studios and a publishing program called LaTeX - showcasing what I learned in my spare time. Something must have worked- because I lost out on the official position, but was offered another role on a side project - with segments to be featured in his book/article.
Just one sentence- but I never imagined I would have my name mentioned. Good Stuff.
C. Avoid the negative, focus on the positive- Sounds generic, but from listening to talks (GaryV) and reading books (like Unshakeable - Tony Robbins), I've been able to shift the way I react to certain events.
During moments as an RA, I couldn't shake the feeling that I wasn't as qualified as he may have expected. I spent a lot of time reading and rereading material to ensure I was ready for a 20-30 minute meeting; I felt that in many scenarios I could have been more efficient. Either way, the old Victor would have apologized for the lack of speed- but now instead of saying "sorry for being slow", I said "Thank you for your patience and guidance". It's a one line difference – but I’m very happy with seeing my internal processes shift and with my personal growth.
D. Work your ass off. Self- Explanatory.
"Life is 10% of what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it" - Charles R. Swindoll
Front Page of my Professor’s website-https://moshemilevsky.com
Cheers,
Victor.