Something I wish I did differently to improve my performance


On Tuesday, I was assigned a new task after completing my previous assignment. Since I had spent two weeks working on my last task, I had understood what the project requirements were and different people within my team to ask questions about that task. However, I did not know where to start with a new task because the project requirements were ambiguous, and I had to look for other people who had worked on previous code related to my task.

Without acknowledging my confusion around this task, I spent the whole day figuring out where to start. But it was very unrealistic to expect me to immediately get started on my new task without prior investigation or conversation with engineers who worked on a similar product. It was no surprise that I did not get any value added to the project that day until I reached out to my manager and acknowledged how I did not understand the task required of me and requested recommendations of software engineers on the team to talk about the code I will be building on. The conversation I had with my manager unblocked me and prepared me for the next day when I made progress on the project.

Throughout this internship, I have learned that although spending time trying to figure something out on my own is good, I should always know when to reach out for help. Additionally, I learned that reaching out for help is not a sign of ignorance but an indication of a desire to learn more.

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