## **What role does empathy play in your life and how has it helped you?**

Empathy has helped me to be a good friend, a better sister, and a good partner. Empathy has helped me listen to people, understand people, and help people. Empathy has given me compassion for others. Empathy has made me want to be a kinder person.

## **How does empathy help you build better software?**

Empathy can help one build better software when one is empathetic to the coworkers who will be reading, reviewing, and adding to your code. By realizing what it looks like to someone else, perhaps I can implement better commenting and better organization for future coders to follow. Also, if one is empathetic to the end user, they will code better, more useful software for the end user, which will increase company revenue by increasing number of users.

## **Why is empathy important for working on a team?**

Empathy is important on a team so that interactions are based in compassion. Empathy will help team members communicate better with one another, understanding each others' needs by understanding each others' backgrounds and listening to eachothers' experiences. It will help members make decisions that will benefit more people. It will help avoid conflict or better communicate through conflict. It will help each team member lift up other team members. All of these traits make a team stronger.

## **Describe a situation in which your ability to empathize with a colleague or teammate was helpful.**

Today one of my coworkers had to give a mock presentation. She bombed it. I was supposed to give her feedback. Because I understood that she was probably already embarrassed about bombing it and that perhaps this was her first live PRACTICE presentation, I tried to sandwich my feedback for improvements with compliments on the things she did well.

## **When do you find it most difficult to be empathetic in professional settings? How can you improve your skills when faced with these scenarios?**

Perhaps I am least empathetic when someone has failed to hold up their side of a bargain, or their part of a project, or not done the required research to contribute. I can improve my reaction. I can practice empathy while trying to understand their reason for not being prepared, taking extra time before I react, understanding I have been in their position before, filling them in, and giving them more time to prepare.