Throughout my university career, I’ve always strived to become the best person I can be. That’s why I believed that entering the Schulich RISE competition would not only help me work towards this goal but also provide me with learning opportunities and a great experience.
While competing at the competition, our team faced and overcame many hardships along the way. The competitive nature of the competition shed light on the intrinsic motivation needed to succeed in different disciplines while teaching transferable skills that cannot be acquired from textbooks. The team and I were tasked with providing recommendations to improve current operations, suggest solutions to problems regarding expansion, and analyze the future outlook for the organization. While working within a group setting, the value of teamwork became evident. We faced a plethora of challenges and obstacles, with the most notable being the two-hour deadline to complete the case. We managed to work around this by employing three main tactics which were; promoting an open and inclusive environment, evaluating each team member’s strengths and weaknesses, and communicating. In my opinion, I believe that these are crucial to any well-functioning and driven team. It turned out to be our biggest asset and led to our success in the competition.
Though my intention while competing wasn’t to win but rather work towards self-improvement and personal development, the skills and experiences obtained are invaluable and I’m glad to have taken part in this competition.