… we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with - Jim Rohn

Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of folls suffers harm. - Proverbs 13:20

Often when I examine myself and think “Oh I haven’t changed too much, I’m very much the same person that I was in the previous year.”

But on closer introspection I think I have changed far more than I anticipated. Preparing speeches may seem to be rather basic portion of your life, where you stand up and talk about anything you want; afterall my speeches have ranged from topics like instant noodles, speaking about speaking, things I carry, and stereotypes.

Yet each and every speech required deep introspection where I relay my own narrative, a partially fictious, partially factual account of my own experiences and life. Without a doubt, the act of just doing these speeches has made me realise how much I have changed over the last few years.

Changing Biases

I won’t lie, attending university post-GFC was a huge concern of what was beyond university. It wasn’t so much whether I would eventually get a job, but what job would it be? Would I have to move interstate or even overseas (I did complete an internship in Hong Kong).

Considering my background in Actuarial studies, it would not surprised anyone if I had took up a position in insurance pricing or valuation at an insurance company; if that was the case certainly my career path would have been different.

The other consideration was the constant reminder that I was extremely ordinary in the context of the other qualified actuarial graduates. With roughly 70 of us graduating from my university alone, and roughly 40 slots in traditional actuarial fields it mean could I even secure a role.

With this context in mind I felt defeated; that I it would impossible to be anything but ordinary in the workforce.

I was very wrong.

In hindsight if there was one truth that I can state with absolute certainty is that there is an implied intelligence. People upon seeing your credentials immediately assume that you have a level of intelligence. Beyond that the most important factor is character traits; how you may handle difficult situations or when things don’t go according to plan. In fact the latter is probably substatially more important than the first. It’s taken me a while, but I think I’ll make it through this world.

Studying matters

Perhaps people will disagree with me in varying degrees. I recall hearing statements like

You won’t use what you learn in university; maybe you’ll use ~10%

This statement is probably mostly true, but what they probably left out is when you do need it, it is of critical importance and perhaps more vitally, the importance continual learning. Yes, perhaps you may only use specific aspects of your degree in your day to day role; but the immense pressure to keep learning in data analytics industry, and even observing my own father in the accounting industry is severely underestimated. Would I have imagined I would become proficient in Python? Understand how map-reduce works? Know about different programming paradigms? Learn about causal inference and statistical matching?

No way! I would have expected that my technical education to cease the moment I walked out of university (at least this is the viewpoint I had starting university, it certainly changed whilst I was there).

The sheer volume of expected and possible learning today is massive. And perhaps the best reminder I had was from an outgoing senior manager during my time at Westpac whose last words to me specifically were the adage:

The moment you think you know everything; you know nothing

On Graduate programs

Graduate programs where the go to roles as a university student. People would hope to secure such a role before completing university. This isn’t to say that all graduate programs are terrible; in fact I would say that some of the programs would be amazing. Rather I would argue that undergoing a graduate program is perhaps the best thing you could do…with some caveats.

My stomach sank after hearing that despite the perceived prestige behind some graduate programs that there were no guarenteed roles! Also the lack of training, or in some instances pressure or value work placed in the graduate program was dissappointing.

Perhaps one of the best lessons I learnt from merely observing this, was the importance of building your own portfolio of projects and work; something which I would encourage everyone to do, especially new graduates.

Your team has a huge impact on you

This is by far the least appreciated aspect. Your team is vital to your success. They will shape you, in your traits, how you approach stakeholders, how you approach you work. The important thing is to remember to always keep an open-mind. Take cues from people outside your team. That is also important.

Without a doubt, changing teams, managers and restructuring has had a huge impact on how I define success. It has given me a set of benchmarks in where I want to be and what I want to achieve; something which would be impossible if I had remained in exactly the same team I began in.

Concluding remarks

I don’t think I would have had these view points one year ago, and I’m sure I’ll have a different perspective in a years time. To summarise:

  • Surround yourself with lots of different good people. If you’re technical/non-technical you will learn alot about how to influence non-technical/technical people in that way. Improving communication is perhaps more important than the marks you earned in university.
  • Don’t neglect your study! Continually learn more whether it be in your specific role, but perhaps more importantly learn how anything and everything works; just for the sake of learning. You will never know where innovation and creativity comes from.
  • Keep an open-mind. Allow yourself to be surprised and perhaps most importantly remember that other people change too, and that one year is a very long time.