The Value of Feedback
Seeking and Taking Feedback
Personalized feedback is one of the most underrated forms of learning. It’s more common to receive feedback after graduating and entering the workforce, but starting a habit of seeking feedback from others in college can accelerate your personal growth significantly. Whether you’re working on a personal project, in the middle of an internship, or simply feel like you’re not making as much progress as you’d like in life, good feedback can take you to the next level. Let’s discuss why feedback is so important and what you can do to get great feedback.
Importance of Feedback
Getting feedback from your teachers is easy. Just submit your assignment on time and wait for your grade later that week. But the feedback you get has limited value. It only helps you get better in that class and doesn’t apply to any other course you take. It also doesn’t teach you anything about yourself or how to build upon your strengths while addressing your weaknesses. Personalized feedback, the kind you get from mentors, friends, and managers, provides insight into a version of you others work with every day. This is important for a variety of reasons, including:
Self Awareness
We have blind spots that we can’t see, but others can. Feedback can provide us a direction for improvement that we might not have detected as soon.
Accountability
Receiving feedback is almost like being given a to-do list of things you should be improving on. The feedback provider can now serve as an accountability partner, aware of the progress you are making to develop yourself.
Sourcing Great Feedback
Not all feedback is the same. It’s subjective and dependant on the experiences and beliefs of the person providing it. To get the best feedback, you first need to get a deep understanding of where you stand in your career and where you want to go.
Here a few things to consider before seeking feedback:
Know what questions to ask - Are you looking to improve your interview frameworks or to see where you went wrong during last week’s presentation? Coming with a clear idea of what you want from the conversation will enable your listener to provide more relevant feedback and advice.
Find the right people - Look for people that have the background or skills to give you meaningful feedback. Ideally, these should be people that care about your success and personal growth, as they’d have the context and mindset necessary to deliver valuable recommendations.
Don’t overwhelm your listener - Stay focused when seeking feedback. The purpose of a feedback session is to come out of it with a list of actions you can take to improve or learn from. Neither you nor your mentor wants to come out of a meeting feeling like it was a waste of time.
Plan to follow-up - Following up shows a commitment to self-improvement and is a good habit to develop if you want to deepen your relationship with the feedback provider and convert them into a mentor. Show them you took action after your meeting and what you learned.
What Now?
Keep a log of all the feedback you receive. Use it as a way to reflect on your personal growth and track your performance throughout your college experience. It’s motivating to see how much you’ve grown in such a short period of time.
In addition, try to seek feedback from more than just supervisors and managers. Get feedback from your coworkers, friends, and family. You’ll be surprised by how much you'll learn about yourself. Diversify your feedback sources as much as you can.
Resources of the Week
Civic Digital Fellowship - Technology internship program for innovative students to solve pressing problems in federal agencies
HBCUvc Fellowship - Fellowship program in venture capital and tech entrepreneurship. Fellows are full-time students enrolled in participating Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)
Remote Students - Remote mentorship, internships, jobs, and community for students
How to Get the Feedback You Need - A deeper look into getting feedback
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