Job Application Question 3

In my third year at university, the entire year class was given an open ended project, over the course of a month, to work together to design and implement a competitive multi-agent system. It was decided together that the year group would set weekly functionality targets and that there would be 5 groups of 8 students. Of the 5 groups, 1 group was implementing the host or “government” for the game environment, and the other 4 would implement autonomous agents to compete with each other.

Within my group of 8, 4 students focused on inter-agent communication, the technical interfaces for “playing” the game, and 4 students focused on the agent’s “intelligence”, i.e. decision making. Being in charge of the agent’s intelligence, I needed to work closely with my sub-group and the other leaders. The aim was to keep up-to date with year-group technical decisions and improve our own winning strategy.

In order to develop strategies, the sub group of four students had brainstorming sessions, where key decisions were made about overall design, and implementation tasks were assigned. I supported others by starting and managing the session, giving input and persuasion as required and listening to others and being persuaded if and when I was wrong and, if required, making any final decisions.

With regards to in-group implementation, we were all working in an unfamiliar programming language, and if any coding problems occurred or some misunderstanding of our agreed algorithm, I was often the one to troubleshoot, find solutions and explain concepts kindly, clearly and calmly. When, as a group, there were problems with the year-group technical decisions, I brought it up at meetings with other group leaders and sought a resolution.

The result was that I brought to the team a good technical understanding of the task, sensible approaches to tackle it and enough clarity to make reasonable suggestions regarding its division. My problem solving skills were valued in the team regarding implementation tasks and programming issues.

My interpersonal skills allowed me to approach others for help solving problems and in turn when other people needed help, I was approachable, kindly and attentive. When in the role of leader, I brought decisiveness (when necessary), responsiveness and care.

As a result of my actions and the team’s actions as a whole, we coded a stable agent, which participated without crashing in most simulations, performing better than others in this respect, and winning in some of the “games”. Later we presented the group’s design and design process in front of our peers and received a good mark.

Specifically dealing with this sort of charged situation in the future, I would attempt to not become so quickly emotionally involved. Having been agitated by another person’s emotional state and worried about my own mistakes, I became less effective at resolving the situation and dealing with the person involved very well.

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