Reflective Essay about Critical Thinking

I was able to develop critical thinking skills as a result of my life experiences. Literacy has had a significant impact on my life because it has taught me how to think. I'm now in my first year of pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Banking and Finance at the most prestigious university in the Caribbean, and after reflecting on my existing thought process during my first week of Semester 1, I realized that my thought process may be as empty as a politician’s promise. When I was in primary school, I thought of myself as a "clever" critical thinker. I always envisioned myself as a leader, and I was always thinking of new methods to tackle. As a result, I created some form of thought process to try solve the problem I had with thinking about how I think. Nonetheless, my early years instilled in me the importance of critical thinking throughout my intellectual growth.

When I go back to my early school days of being confined within the four walls of my classroom, I remember how curious my classmates and I were about how society works. After our never-ending questions, my teacher decided that it would be best to divide us into groups and share our insights in order to satisfy our curiosity; as a result, I subsequently realized how effective our group communication was. I recall thinking about ways to find answers; this influenced my ability to think critically in some way. It opened my thought process to my classmates' competing viewpoints, and it extended my thinking by understanding that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to a problem. I believe that when I think, I adopt a particular mode of thought dependent on the context. Considering that different situations require different ways of thinking, I would adopt different skills. Now that I'm at the University of the West Indies and have no problem with collaborative learning, I'm wondering if that experience helped me build a decent thought process.

Given the importance of critical thinkers in the workplace, this improvement in critical thinking based on experiences will have an impact on my time at the University of the West Indies and the Social Sciences in Banking and Finance by causing me to engage on a deeper, more intellectual level with my classmates and supervisors, resulting in stronger working relationships. After I graduate from the University of the West Indies, I plan to carry this attribute throughout my profession. However, I believe that my capacity to think will need to develop far more. To be considered an exceptional financier, my existing thinking process is still insufficient. Hence, I do not feel this is the end of my road; rather, it is simply a tiny step on the path of how I think when I think.