This is the first article in a series in which I will tackle the challenge of identifying personal strengths. My goal is to share my own journey on the path towards self-discovery and how that helped me identify my personal strengths as well as helping to clarify both my dreams and purpose in life.
The Early Years– Discovering my Passion for Literature and Public Speaking
I am the son of two Taiwanese immigrants that arrived in America in the early 1970s. Both my father and mother finished college in Taiwan and came to the United States to pursue graduate studies. My father received two Master’s degrees, one in Computer Science and the other in Mathematics. Since Computer Science was a rapidly developing field that was also very lucrative, my mother, who had studied nutrition in college, also began learning how to program.
Growing up the son of two programmers, I naturally was encouraged to explore my technical side. Throughout my elementary and junior high school years, I generally did better in the math and sciences than in the humanities and I took it to mean that I was just better in those subjects than others.
It wasn’t until my freshman English course in high school that I began to develop a strong interest in reading. Before then I read a lot of popular children’s fiction, Goosebumps , Madeline L’Engle books, and fantasy novels such as C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia. My taste in English literature became more sophisticated as I was introduced to a broader range of contemporary as well as early American and British fiction.
Although I was beginning to develop a passion for reading, I still spent most of my time studying math and science; this was mainly due to the fact that I attended a specialized high school for math and science. Although it didn’t occur to me at the time, in retrospect, I realize that I had little interest in the subjects that I spent most of my time on. But since I had been conditioned since childhood to do well in my studies, even if I wasn’t very interested, I studied hard anyway.
In addition to my English literature classes, I took a public speaking class during my sophomore year. I still remember the hours I spent rehearsing this speech about a Catholic school boy pleading his innocence after incurring the wrath of his teacher. The applause and praise I received both from my peers as well as my instructor was one of the best moments of my high school career.
As a result of the hard work I put into my studies and other high school activities, I was admitted to a number of top American universities. I finished high school thinking that I wanted to be an engineer partly because of my father’s influence and partly because of the amount of time I had spent studying math and science. Somehow I had managed to convince myself that engineering would be a good fit for me.
College Years – Major Hopping
When I started my first quarter in college, I quickly realized that I didn’t have the chops to be a top engineering student; I had decided upon Computer Science as my major thinking that it would be the best option given my interests and abilities. As it turns out, not only was I wrong about my interest, but I was completely off about my strengths as well.
Going to a school with very highly regarded engineering programs didn’t help at all. Every time I thought about changing course, I would look around at my peers, many who were pursuing engineering degrees, and think to myself “I can do this, I just need to get motivated and work hard.”
During my first quarter I took a challenging Computer Science course that had weekly problem sets which took me on average 15-20 hours. Meanwhile there were many students who could finish in half or a third of the time. Although I spent a great deal of time on my homework, the results were always mediocre; having being used to getting As in school, this frustrated me greatly.
Although I didn’t switch gears immediately, I began toying with the idea of branching out and trying different subjects. By the end of my freshman year I had taken my first Religious Studies class and loved it. Freshman year ended on a high note and I returned home excited about a new year full of different possibilities.
Sophomore Year - The Turning Point
I returned to school during my sophomore year unfocused and confused about what I wanted. Spending the summer at home meant that I was in constant contact with my father who was dead set on me following in his footsteps. At the time he had just begun developing a new engine technology and wanted me to collaborate with him. Excited by the idea, I ended up convincing myself to pursue a degree in Mechanical Engineering.
I spent my first quarter taking Mechanical Engineering classes then switching to Product Design, which is a hybrid of art and engineering, and then finally returned to Computer Science during the spring quarter. By the time I had finished my sophomore year I had taken classes in at least five disciplines and considered at least as many majors, but was no closer to understanding my personal strengths. I moved from one subject to the next by a process of elimination.
The end of sophomore year was the turning point of my college career. I had taken another very challenging programming class and was extremely unhappy with the long hours I spent coding. After spending over two years pursuing an engineering degree, I finally worked up the courage to admit that I lacked the passion to gut it out. Although it offered a lucrative starting salary, prestige and security, I had no intention of wasting two years of my life studying something just for the sake of money and status.
Sophomore year was a major turning point for me because I had made a decision to give up a path that had a lot of visible upside. I was also, through my training as a career counselor, developing a better understanding of me and my own unique strengths and interests.
The End of College - And the Beginning of a New Me
In the end I graduated with a degree in East Asian Studies, which was completed in my remaining two years. Since the major’s requirements were quite flexible, I was able to study abroad in three different countries and still graduate on time. Although the job prospects upon graduation were certainly not as bountiful as my friends who majored in engineering, I was still able to find work.
My time abroad was another major eye opener for me. It helped me realize that I enjoyed meeting new people and experiencing different environments. Through these experiences I came to realize that working and interacting with people on a personal level is not only very important to me, it is also one of my strengths.
The thought that interpersonal communication could be a strength was a totally novel idea for me. Up until then, my concept of a strength was restricted to technical skills. Everyone could speak and write, but not everyone could build cars or program computers, so I naturally believed that only the rarer skills could be considered strengths. I had naively thought that everyone needed some kind of technical skill to prove their value to society. Although intuitively, I knew this to be false, I couldn’t imagine a company hiring me without any technical skills.
Although I graduated with a better understanding of what my strengths were not, I was still unclear as to what my strengths were and how I could utilize them to my advantage.
Stay Tuned for How to Identify Your Personal Strengths Part II - Common Pitfalls and Challenges
Tags: Strengths
