I completed the PERMA™ (positive emotion, engagement, relationships, meaning, accomplishment) workplace questionnaire to evaluate my current experience at Wesleyan. For this part of my life, I consider the campus at large to be my “workplace”. The questionnaire was originally developed to measure the five pillars liste above, along with negative emotion and health.
As this semester comes to an end, I am beginning to consider how I would like to spend my next semester on campus. Some of these decisions have already been made or are commitments that will continue from this semester. For instance, I have enrolled in four full-credit courses: Middle Ages Colloquium, Daemons, Enigmas, and the Cosmic Image: Classical and Modern Allegory, 20th Century Franco-Carribean Literautre and the Search for Identity, and Econometrics. In addition, there are some responsibilities that I have already committed to: being both senior treasurer and president of Alpha Delta Phi and continuing to work at Olin Library in the Special Collections and Archives. And, I hope to use this questionnaire in conjunction with other reflective tools to help in prioritizing my obligations and improving my scores in these areas.
Scored out of ten, my results are as follows: positive emotions: 6.33, engagement: 6.67, relationships: 7.33, meaning: 7.33, accomplishment: 7.67, health: 6.33, negative emotions: 4, workplace wellbeing: 7. Overall, I am pleased with these results. However, there are also clear areas for improvement. Some of this improvement likely needs to come in the form of a shift in mindset while others are situational or environmental stressors. My lowest scores were in health and positive emotions. To be fair, this questionnaire is entirely unsophisticated and relies entirely on a small number of questions with responses based solely on the test-taker’s perception of themselves. That said, I could definitely be more positive. I think that I have a tendency to lack confidence in myself which perpetuates a cycle of negative emotions and performance. As for health, I am generally healthy but also want to continue prioritizing my physical health the way that I have begun this semester by enrolling in physical education courses. Next semester I am going to take a strength training course for a quarter. I would like to take more but my schedule only allows for so much. In all, I appreciate that this survey has encouraged me to systematically evaluate my own satisfaction with my Wesleyan life. I am going to try to redo this survey with more specific topics, certain courses, on-campus employment, etc., which should yield more tangible results and make targeted improvement easier in the future.
