Today's exercises are focused on your strengths (the present) and your wanderings in life (the past). You'll be mapping them out in structured ways together.

Strengths

Foursquare. Your TA may ask students to stand/sit in clusters according to the four areas of strength that the CliftonStrengths assessment uses (based on your top strength or the majority of your strengths).

How does the description of your top strength(s) connect to patterns you’ve noticed in your work experiences? Do you feel like you've used the top strength(s) in the workplace? in school? What is the result when you use the strength(s)? If you were an employer, which strengths do you think would work well to reinforce or complement each other?

Problem-based learning. Your TA may ask you to think about situations at work or school where conflict arose or where a group had to collaborate on a large project. How might an understanding of different people's strengths help address conflict or improve the results of the collaboration?

Your TA may also present a hypothetical group project to you, put you in teams based on strengths (so each of the 4 major strengths areas are represented, as much as possible), ask you to discuss how you would approach the project so as to leverage everyone's strengths, and have you share out your game plans.

Name calling. For any given strength, there may be a positive way to see it and a negative way to see it. And in some cases our greatest strengths are also areas of weakness for us.

For this exercise, you'll be coming up with compliments and insults – about your top strength(s). If it helps, you can think of ways your top strength(s) would be helpful/desirable versus ways your top strength(s) would be unhelpful/undesirable. Can you think of situations when you have been frustrated at work or in school in a way related to your top strength(s)? It may be helpful to jot down notes on a piece of paper (one half for compliments, one half for insults).

From strengths to values. Advisors at the UW–Madison Career Exploration Center sometimes ask students to reflect not only on their strengths, but also on their values. Take a look at this handout on values and think about which ones you'd identify as closest to your own. If you had to choose five most important values related to a future career from this list, which would they be? Do these five values relate to the five strengths you've identified?

Is this for real? Do you believe the tool has accurately pointed to your top five strengths? Are any of these five strengths surprising to you? Are there other strengths that you believe you posses which the tool did not identify? How might you articulate these identified strengths on your LinkedIn page or in a resume?

Your TA has also taken this strengths analysis quiz, and may choose to offer their own reflections on whether they think the quiz accurately reflects their own strengths – and if so, how they talk about and practice those strengths as part of their own academic and career development.

Wanderings

The following activity is adapted from Brooks pp. 24–39. We are skipping one round of connect-the-dots, but otherwise we are following the same procedure.

Step 1. Take out a blank sheet of paper and two different colored writing utensil. Write your name in the middle of the paper.

Step 2. Set a timer for 3 minutes, and write down all the important parts of you life. See the list below for ideas. Write small, and don't stop writing! You want two or three dozen items.

Important events
Places you've lived
Good vs. bad jobs
Memorable classes
Hobbies/fandoms
Teams/groups
Awards/honors
Personal victories

Step 3. Pair up with someone, and swap maps. Get some new ideas based on what they wrote. Take just 1 minute for this.

Step 4. Set a timer for 2 minutes, and write down additional important more parts of your life. Write small, and don't stop writing! You want two or three dozen items.

Step 5. Using a different colored writing utensil, draw connecting lines between connected items. Don't connect conventional CATEGORIES (like the ones in the list above) – instead look for THEMES. Label the lines when you've got a handle on what the connecting themes are.

Step 6. Take a look at the labels you've put on the connecting lines. Some of them will still resonate with you, and some will feel superficial or arbitrary. In the margin of the paper, list the labels that you endorse. (If you find all your labels insightful, list them all.)

Step 7. Reflect! Here are some questions your TA may ask, to help you extract value from this exercise.

If you had to sum up your wanderings diagram in a single word or phrase, what would it be?
How does this change your view of your education?
- How does the definition of a liberal education connect to your wanderings diagram?
- Did this activity remind you of anything you'd like to pursue while here at UW?
Does this map bolster your previous assignments?
- Does it give context to your personal brand?
- Do you see items that should be on your resume?
- Could you summarize the things on your map as STAR statements?
- Are your strengths evident in the components of you wanderings map?
Was it helpful to do this exercise graphically, or would you have preferred to use text?

Examples

Katharine Brooks includes two example wanderings diagrams in chapter 02 of her book, both of which are annotated for themes (rather than categories):