MSLD 500 Module 5- Critical Thinking about Critical Thinking

Way before making the decision to pursue a master’s degree in leadership, I’ve always been an overthinking and detailed-oriented individual. Whether it was something small like cleaning to advising my students, I always had the belief that only looking at “the top of the pile” will have some sort of effect (usually negative) later on. This was especially seen during my writing experience in 6^th grade. My English teacher assigned every student in his class to enter an island-wide essay contest. Since I sided with speed, I was often scolded by my teacher due to the lack of effort and details in my essay. After taking his advice and submitting the essay, I miraculously ended up winning first place. This was when I realized how details and effort can really make a huge difference in even the simple things like writing. In the end, I decided to get into the habit of being detailed and thinking deeper.

Today, my critical thinking and detail-oriented habits are stronger than ever. My position as an academic advisor is dependent on this since it is my goal to be clear and informative so students can successfully graduate. Even though I believe that my critical thinking skills has always been strong, being a part of this course has definitely enhanced my thinking and communication skills. As weird as it may sound, I believe that taking part of this course has got me in a better habit of thinking about my thinking. I think the key for taking this class is to identify what we are doing in our critical thinking. For example, I use intellectual perseverance almost every day, but was not aware of it. As a result, I never understood the complete definition of intellectual perseverance. As we did our assignment on intellectual perseverance as well as other topics, I was able to not only understand the definition, but also provide examples, opinions, as well as connect the topic to another. Putting this together, we are actually using the system of thinking, and this will enhance our knowledge on critical thinking and leadership throughout the program.