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The Space Between Knowing and Doing — From Curiosity to Career

Embracing your UNIqueness: a student article series

Published on the 08 December 2025 by UNSW Business School EDI Team

At UNSW Business School, Yaseerah Hassan’s journey unfolds at the intersection of curiosity and courage, driven by a deep desire to understand how people learn, think, and grow.

Drawn to UNSW for its blend of innovation, community and possibility, she quickly discovered that the most transformative lessons weren’t found in lectures, instead they emerged from navigating independence, embracing discomfort, and saying yes to opportunities that stretched her.

As she reflects on the experiences that shaped her — from building AI systems to empowering young women through design-led education — her story shows how clarity, intention and courage can turn self-discovery into clear, driven purpose.

I never set out to build a company. I set out to understand myself.

Growing up in a family deeply passionate about logic and analytical thinking in Dubai’s self-improvement-driven culture, I learned early that intelligence isn’t fixed—it’s something you can develop and share. I came to understand it as the key that opens doors often seen as locked or reserved for only a few with hard-to-access skills.

This belief became the forefront of my obsession with learning how to think better; how habits, memory, emotional regulation, burnout, and tiny one-percent decisions shape the working brain. I wanted to know why some people thrive, and why others collapse under the exact same pressure.

And more quietly, I wanted to become someone I could be proud of. When I arrived at UNSW Business School in 2023 as an international student beginning a bachelor’s degree in information systems and data analytics, all that theory endorsed reality. For the first time, I was alone. I didn’t know how to cook, clean properly, grocery shop, or even make my bed consistently.

The noise of surviving adulthood swallowed the clarity I hoped university would bring. My learning suffered, not because I didn’t care, but because everything in my environment was pulling energy away from the classroom. That survival phase pushed me to look for holistic solutions; towards systems thinking. I needed structure not just to organise my life, but to protect my attention being fought for every 24 hours in a day.

So I digitised everything: calendars, reflection journals, workflows — to create mental space. I began dividing my days into dedicated blocks for deep work, rest, and reflection; a practice known as time‑blocking. These practices sharpened my focus and structured my chaos, preparing me to experiment with tools like AI.

The AI Shift That Rewired My Mind

When ChatGPT launched, I treated it like a sparring partner; studying how it reasoned, how it failed, and how it could mirror my cognition. Soon, I was designing systems with it: learning new frameworks, studying pipelines, and thinking protocols common to everyday tasks.

For twelve months, I exported the full history of my ChatGPT conversations and turned it into a data mine, analysing how my thinking, confidence, and decision-making had improved over time.

The gap between idea and execution had nearly disappeared. My productivity hadn’t just increased; it quadrupled. But as my efficiency skyrocketed, I felt something deeper missing. I had mastered personal productivity but felt out of sync with my purpose. Without sharing what I was learning, I began to drift from my belief that intelligence grows through connection.

I realised true intelligence isn’t just about managing systems and tasks — it’s about linking insights to life, sharing what I’ve discovered, and helping others grow alongside me.

That realisation became the bridge between my internal transformation and what would soon become my external work.

The Workshop That Became a Mirror

Then came a conversation that shifted everything, once more.

Rhiannon Tout, EDI Project Officer, and Paul Macmullen, a ‘design your life expert’, UNSW Business School, invited me to design a session for the 2025 Girls in Business Camp.

The brief was simple: “create something empowering and accessible for high school students while exploring AI’s evolving role for women.”

But drawing from everything I’d learned about growth and systems, I knew there was more. I wanted to help young women challenge the assumptions holding them back. Together, we created Debunk, Demystify & Design Your Future.

The phrase quickly became more than a workshop title. It became the structure of the entire GIB Camp—capturing everything we hoped the experience would stand for:

  • Design your future with intention, not pressure
  • Debunk outdated beliefs about women and success
  • Demystify what business, life, and work really look like—especially in an AI-powered world

The workshop opened with a social experiment. I walked on stage at the NIDA Theatre wearing joggers and a puffer jacket. No slides. No title. Just “a student named Yasi.” Participants were asked to make judgments based solely on my appearance.

Then I stepped backstage, changed into a blazer and heels, and returned as the “traditional professional.”

  • Same person.
  • Same voice.
  • Two completely different reactions.

Initially, students commented on my personality, field of study, and sense of belonging. After the wardrobe change, their comments shifted toward professionalism, credibility, and appearance.

A tiny shift. A massive mirror.

That moment opened the room to a deeper conversation about identity, bias, belonging, and digital agency. For the first time, I realised that education could be an experience, not just information and notes.

We weren’t teaching students what to think. We were helping them discover who they could become with that knowledge.

That day at NIDA became a turning point. It taught me how leadership grows through vulnerability, and systems are not just productivity tools—they’re reflections of our identity.

The Phone Call That Redirected My Career

Months later, I took a week of leave from my job in UNSW Admissions to look for a graduate role. On the first morning, a recruiter called about an AI internship. The next day, the CEO of Makinex Construction Products called me directly.

It was clear they didn’t deeply understand AI—yet. So I asked if I could come in and show them what I meant when I talked about capability.

I built a three-slide pitch:

  1. Everything You Need to Know About AI
  2. Who I Am
  3. How I Will Transform Your Company

I delivered the pitch in their boardroom and walked out with a job offer—not as an intern, but as their Digital Transformation Consultant.

It was surreal. Months earlier I had been reading KPMG’s Futuresphere Report, admiring the authors and wishing I could work in a space like that. Now I was designing AI strategy, conducting systems audits, building custom GPT agents, and training an entire company on AI literacy.

That role taught me: technology is only half the story. The other half is clarity—the human ability to think, adapt, and lead with intention.

UNSW as the Catalyst

UNSW’s culture turned “Why not? Try it?” into my mantra. Whether through EDI workshops, Business School sessions, or casual chats with lecturers, people treated my rough ideas like prototypes ready to test.

That environment let me iterate everything — from MindVault to AI literacy programs, without fear of failure.

What I’d Tell My Younger Self

  • Start where you are.
  • You don’t need to be ready — you just need to begin.
  • Build systems that protect your attention.
  • Let discomfort be your teacher.
  • And surround yourself with people who treat your drafts as stepping stones, not final destinations.

MindVault & The Work Ahead

MindVault is the intersection of everything I’ve learned—AI, self-design, psychology, and systems thinking.

Today, my work spans:

  • Learners — helping them demystify AI, build confidence, and design sustainable study systems.
  • Executives — bringing clarity to digital transformation through audits, playbooks, and capability building.
  • Communities — running workshops where innovation feels human, not intimidating.

At the center is one guiding principle: Debunk the noise. Demystify the tools. Design with intention.

Starting from time-blocking on a plain calendar app —  now I'm sharing everything through Life OS: a guided tool that connects planning, reflection, and workflows into one system. It does the bridging for you, scaling everything I've learned into clarity you can use to open doors and achieve anything.

Gratitude

I'm grateful to the students, mentors, and UNSW community who trusted my early ideas and gave me space to experiment, fail, and grow.

You remind me that education transforms when we learn and build together.