HELLO & WELCOME TO MY BLOG!

Welcome to my shiny new blog! My name is Chen Xingchen and I am so happy to be sharing my thoughts here, and even happier knowing that you are finally reading it!

Motivation

On the one hand, the interest stems from my studies during the undergraduate years. On Wednesday, I participated in the seminar of Interdisciplinary Futures, which made me think about the significance of my past academic background to my current stage of study. During my undergraduate period, I majored in financial engineering, a discipline that intersects finance, mathematics, and computers. Obviously, in the field of finance, the design of financial products, the development of trading strategies, and the management of financial risks involve a large amount of macro and micro data. As a data-intensive industry, the finance industry has made me fully aware of the appeal of digital data. Therefore, if I amplify the importance of data science and apply it to a broader social field, it will be a great vision.

On the other hand, I was taken away by the interdisciplinary nature of the programme as well as its vision to cultivate critical citizens in a fast-changing world. Unlike disciplines with definitive answers like mathematics, our society is a realm of complexities lacking clarity. As a result, it is hard to find solutions to many problems, such as class division and gender inequality, and the massive inequality between the third world and the developed world. Therefore, I believe, the solving of the problem will hugely benefit from the use of data. The open and interactive character of data research may be able to break through the fixed paradigm of traditional social research, and provide innovative ideas to address the problems of social inequalities.

Locate myself on a circle

I assessed my main creative soft skills through the Creative Soft Skills Circle tool. The outcome showed that my Creative Thinking and Awareness were very present, Problem Solving and Leadership were quite present, while Learning-to-learn and Communication skills were not very present. This outcome provides some reference for my soft skills assessment, although it is not entirely accurate as I was very hesitant when choosing many options. In terms of Learning-to-learn skills, I do rarely stay curious about the unknown and it usually takes me a long time to adapt to new things. Therefore, it is crucial for me to enhance my individual cognitive needs. In terms of communication, I used to prefer to work individually, even though I know that teamwork is significant. Therefore, I will try to collaborate more in groups. In addition, I was surprised at the outcome of my creative thinking skills. This is because, in my opinion, it is even the ability I lack the most. Therefore, it is very important to learn how to make full use of my knowledge base and how to combine the help of others to make creative thinking.

Plan

In the short term, which is the coming week, I need to complete the essential reading list assigned by some courses. In the long term, I plan to transfer my focus into directions of data, which is also reflected in my course selection. To telling the truth, such a plan is general and not clear enough. So, I hope to make my goals and plans more specific and clearer over the next few weeks.

Thanks for visiting my first blog and I am so excited to be starting my blogging journey with you!

My KIPP Blog – Week 1 / Knowledge Integration and Project Planning: Data, Inequality and Society (2022-2023) by blogadmin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0