Task
Your task is to write a reflection piece entitled:“The End of History Illusion”.
In your writing, you are required to reflect on how you dealt with uncertainty during your eventful journey in formal education, the opportunities presented to you, and how you have been able to leverage these in terms of developing yourself as a Finance professional capable of dealing with and adding value in light of uncertainty. You may also reflect upon some of the gaps in your formal education, and how you intend to fill these gaps yourself so that you can succeed in the real world.

Background:

The article "Why it's so hard to think effectively about the future" by Rock, Sip and Dixit (2018) provides a nice and useful background for this assessment. If just about every decision we make relies on an accurate understanding of the future state of the world, why are we so inept at and averse to thinking about the future? Why do we have a false sense of certainty? The explanation they provide lies in neuroscience:" The future is inherently uncertain, and the brain loathes uncertainty... which is both cognitively taxing and subjectively aversive". Consequently, individuals underestimate the amount of future change they will experience-a behavioural bias known as the End of History Illusion. Of course, trying to predict the future from past data through statistical analysis based on assumption that things will remain the same in the future will ill prepare us for shocks (unexpected changes) in the future. The solution is futures thinking, defined as a creative and exploratory process that uses divergent thinking, seeking many possible answers and acknowledging the omnipresence of uncertainty. It is a different mind-set to analytical thinking, which uses convergent thinking and statistical analysis to seek the "right" answer and reduce uncertainty. Futures thinking requires active inference, a process where substantial creativity and imagination are very much needed in addition to facts and assumptions.

When writing your reflection piece, you will need to provide logical arguments and evidence that support your opinion to persuade the readers your thoughts are worthy of attention. If you find this is not the case, then you are not done writing.

Writing a killer reflection piece

You may consider the following guide in writing a persuasive reflection piece:

1. STRUCTURE/STRATEGY - make sure you adopt a structure/ format that best conveys your opinion. Some piece might require a different structure/format depending on the path you take

2. EMOTION - make your writing personal-be emotive and show your passion. At the end of the day, it is your (exciting) opinion;

3. ARGUMENT - What makes your opinion trustworthy? Make sure that your opinion reflects a justified belief - if you haven't fully convinced us that your opinion is worthy of attention, then you may not have finished writing. It might help to get someone else to read your piece early on.

4. NARRATIVE - What is your story? Present your opinion piece as a written account of connected events.