Tutorial and Mentor Reflections

Working with my tutor on this academic paper and PDP elements, i have learnt alot about myself and felt i have improved my learning skills.  My tutor was particularly helpful when selecting a topic for my academic paper, plenty of useful suggestions and opportunities for one to one tuition were offered, i attended a meeting with my tutor who basically assured me that i was going in the right direction with my paper, even though i did end up changing the topic i chose.  My mentor has helped me with several maths problems and offered sound advice when writing my lab reports for materials, he is particularly knowledgable when it comes to engineering materials, their properties and also with the structure of written lab reports.  I will continue to go to him when i need to know anything college or work related.

My Mentor

My mentor is John Sendall, having already completed the Mechanical Engineering BEng (Hons) degree with ARU achieving a 1st, he is the person i go to with any engineering problems at work or any difficulties with any subjects i am studying at college.  John started studying for a degree fulltime at university, having completed the equivalent modules to achieve an HND, he started working for the department of Chemistry.  I met John when i started working at the department of Chemistry 3 years ago.  At this time i started studying for an ONC in mechanical engineering, it was at this time John continued his studies towards the full degree he had started years before, only this time part time.  He completed this at the same time i finished my ONC.  He has been a great help to me over the years and i look up to him and prefer to go to him than my boss with work related issues.  He can be arrogant at times but having been on several out of work activities with him such as ski trips and holidays in the UK i feel i have enough of a rapport with him to work around this.  It sometimes gets in the way but i still choose him as my mentor.

Revised topic for my paper

The topic of my paper i am writing is 'Is Nuclear Power a Viable Energy Source for the Future'

I have chosen this for a while as there was little to no useful information to use on the recycling topic.  I have extensive research on the nuclear power topic, i have everything i need to continue and my literature review is almost complete.

I hope to have something to hand in on friday (12/11/10)

Vark Assessment

Results:

Visual: 2

Audio: 6

Reading: 3

Kinaesthetic: 4

I do not agree with the results from my vark assessment as I have the most points in audio and the least in visual.  I have always said, and it has been my experience in life, that I find learning extremely difficult when somebody is explaining something to me.  Learning, for me, is best done kinaesthetically which is the area in which I would have expected to achieve the highest score; I like to be practical and hands-on in my learning with the backing of a little background reading, I do not consider audio to be of much benefit at all and would rate kinaesthetic, visual and reading above audio, in that order.

The vark assessment is perhaps not a very accurate method of reducing ones learning syle into a point scale system as it consists of only 13 multiple choice questions, this is insufficient to gain a full perspective of ones learning style.

In my learning line, a correlation can be seen between my positive outlook and areas where I am in a physical learning environment, for example, challenging new subjects at secondary school and the first stages of my engineering career can be seen in the positive area of my learning line.  Areas where I am unhappy in life are where I am in sixth form, with lectures given and very little practical learning.

In summary, I disagree with the vark assessment; however; I know in myself that I am not happy in life when not learning new things and I prefer to learn in a physical, hands on way.  As mentioned above I consider audio aids when learning to be of little importance and difficult to take in.

Topic for my Paper

As a group of 3 we have decided to research the topic;

"Is enough done about recycling in industry, specifically in the area of engineering?"

although this is quite long winded... will probably rephrase this, perhaps:

"Is recycling in the Engineering industry promoted sufficiently?"

Will think about this later, the main areas to concentrate on are perhaps, Environment, Cost and Ethical....
with regards to the ethical side of this topic, this will be one which is going to be fairly difficult to research sufficiently, perhaps an opinion poll could be useful...

For those of you interested, opinion polls can be made for free and exported to facebook for maximum response, try this website:  Http://www.surveymonkey.com

SWOT Analysis

---------------------------------> My SWOT analysis can be found here <---------------------------------

I split it into work, education and personal because i thought it would work better, not sure if it did.... perhaps a little brutal with the weaknesses but it's much easier to slate yourself than it is to be overly proud.

What's a Lickert Scale?

Well.... 30 seconds googling told me it's one of those scales where in response to a series of questions, a candidate must answer in the following format:

1. Strongly Agree
2. Agree
3. Neither agree or disagree
4. Disagree
5. Strongly Disagree

So that on completing the series of questions a score is achieved, sometimes the middle option of neither agree or disagree is removed, leaving only 4 choices, which is known as a 'Forced Choice' method... yes.. i got it from wikipedia.