video on self reflection

Self reflection intro

Reflection is a process of examining ourselves, analysing what and why we did things and identifying what we learnt. You may have been asked to reflect on feedback that you’ve received from university work or practical work that you have done in a lab or workshop.  

In this section we’ll help you to learn how to reflect on what you’ve done in the past to help you decide what you might like to do in your career in the future. Start by watching the short video Career Snapshot - Self Reflectionand reading the content on this page, then move onto knowing your skills and knowing you motivation webpages.

Knowing how to self reflect can help you in a variety of situations including:  

  • Improving your university grades by learning from feedback and experiences 
  • Helping you to analyse your past experiences to decide on a future career 
  • Understanding what skills you have and how to prove these during the application process 
  • Showing an employer how valuable your work is during a review process 

There is no one right way to reflect and you will find many theories and models that explain how to do it. Most of them are based on asking yourself a lot of questions about the event or experience you’re wanting to reflect on so you can figure out what you’ve learnt or what you might do differently next time.

Some good starting point questions are: 

  • Did you enjoy it? Why? Or why not?  
  • What did you do? Why did you do it? 
  • What worked well? What didn't work well? 
  • What did you learn? What would you change? 

Exactly what questions you ask yourself depends on why you are reflecting in the first place. With regards to your career choice and linking back into your Plan: Me the two main questions you will be reflecting on are: 

  1. Can I do this career? 
  2. Do I want to do this career?