Final Reflection
Throughout this year I learned valuable lessons as well as key takeaways from this entrepreneurship class that will benefit me in the future to help me become a successful entrepreneur. I learned these lessons through different projects and assignments given to our class that touch on reading, community workshops, micro lending investments, urban plan, and even our own startup enterprise we created. I personally found that this year was very valuable and I learned a lot through my failures and successes and being able to do it with friends alongside me made it even more enjoyable. Even though I am online I felt like I had a connection with the class and was still very well engaged with the class and what we were learning. Coming into this class I didn’t know what to expect and when we were tasked to present our guts on the table the first day I was already nervous. I wasn’t prepared for what I was gonna say or didn’t take into though what my achievements were or what I was skilled at. From the very beginning of the class it taught me to be prepared and ready.
When doing reading seminars we had to go in depth and find takeaways from the lessons and main topics of each book and try to connect entrepreneurial values. For my books which were time machines and the millionaire next door, I learned about taking risks and finding the right time to do so which is only if you truly believe you can succeed. There is no good risk or bad risk; it is all up to the person and their situation. This helps me become a better entrepreneur and tells me that it is all a different and unique individual experience for the person and you gotta find what path you’re gonna take. When doing the reading seminars it helped me become better at public speaking and creating presentations. I know that that is a very valuable skill when it comes to being an entrepreneur. By doing that I was able to get more comfortable and confident with what I say and how I sound.
By doing micro lending and community workshops I was able to learn about public outreach and exploring different communities. When finding a kiva lender, research is always good to find out if it is worth loaning to them. So when I did research about a lady from Kenya it helped me connect way more to the situation she is in rather than just giving her money and forgetting about it. For the community workshop it helped me find connections within the different communities I am in and build off of them. I learned that creating connections is the best when out reaching a person or a community. At the start of the year I was unsure what I could contribute to Hawaii and the communities I am a part of. By figuring out what my skills are as well as what communities I am a part of I was able to see what opportunities are out there for business ventures. Kiva taught me that there’s more to the world than what I just see. I learned to appreciate where I come from and to not take it for granted.
Our projects such as the urban plan and our final startup enterprise was a real learning experience and it taught us the realistic pov of being an urban planner or someone creating a startup. Urban plan showed the stress and how competitive it is being in that type of environment where you can’t make any mistakes or it will cost you a lot of money, since designing a town is very important. My favorite project which was creating our own startup enterprise was basically the real deal and had us incorporate everything we learned throughout the projects and put it into an idea we created. Even though my individual proposal wasn’t chosen I was happy to help my group leader move forward on his and I think we did a great job. At first when presenting to the judges we got destroyed and we ultimately failed. What I learned from that experience was to learn from my failure and build off of the mistakes I made. So the next round we had for the judges we had answers prepared and was able to make an argument for why we believe our urban plan design was suitable. Even though we didn’t win It was a very good learning experience.
The year started off with us finding our own ikigai and I believe that idea of ikigai was shown throughout the final parts of the school year. It helped me connect our projects to my own experiences and make it something unique to only me. It taught skills such as design thinking and made me become a problem solver and a leader. I think this was one of the most educational school years I have ever been a part of. I ultimately learned how to present myself, be prepared, learn from my mistakes, and use my skills for something I feel is important. To be honest at first I didn’t think learning about ikigai was useful and thought that it isn’t gonna even need to be applied but now that I am at the end of the school year I am glad I went through this process of learning about myself and connecting it with all the knowledge I know.
