As I reflect on the classes I have attended, there are so many lessons I have learnt that are beneficial to my day to day life and even important in my future life. I have had very many interesting topics but the most interesting one is about Personal network structure. Networking is the process of identifying and maintaining a relationship. This relationship is important because one is able to obtain information, guidance, influence and even support in the career growth and development. This topic has helped me learn and understand the various network behaviors necessary in the shaping of one’s personal career. Such behaviors include; initiation and maintenance of internal and external contacts in one’s organization, getting engaged and involved in professional and even community activities and also doing more challenging work assignments.
This topic has taught me that, attending of events such as career seminars, conferences and educative meeting, one is able to gain knowledge, new ideas and also interact with new influential people. This people can be managers or even leaders, therefore any interaction with them can be beneficial to your career journey. Networking behaviors helps in the achievement of valuable career outcomes such as Career satisfaction, advancement and even career mobility whereby one is able to move from one organization to the other in such of greener pastures.
This topic has taught me about weak and strong ties whereby the weak ties comprises of the people that I less frequently meet and we are not emotionally attached whereas the strong ties constitutes of people that are very close to me and we are emotionally attached for instance my family or even very close friends. The topic helped me understand that the best ties to maintain are the weak ties because from such I am able obtain untapped, unique and more diverse information and resources essential for my career growth. Finally I learnt that maintaining large networks is important because it enhances effectiveness and also increases the chances of finding new and better job opportunities and also creation of intra firm mobility. I therefore think that this class is important for my future career.