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Academic skills are one of the most crucial skills which increase the ability of students and probability to be successful in professional life. These skills are crucial as it increases the productivity of students at academic, which are transferable to the workplace. The study will discuss three crucial academic skills and their importance in university students.
Crucial skills
Time management is one of the crucial skills for a university student which helps students to work efficiently and increase their productivity by avoiding multitasking and focusing on a single task at a time (Adams and Blair 2019). A time management skill improves the completion of tasks within a specific duration which results in higher productivity. Prioritising a task is also another fact factor that helps to private eyes task and locates time to complete this task (Fidalgo et al. 2020). The skills are not only effective to reduce stress and pressure but also enable higher productivity and increase opportunities in the future workplace. Accomplishing projects and tasks within a specific time enhances confidence among University students which increases their career opportunities and higher growth in their profession as well as personal life.
The study has considered communication and collaboration work as one of the most crucial for University students. Well-developed communication enhances collaborative activities and working which are not only effective for teamwork but also success in academic and work-life (Abbas et al. 2019). Students who have effective communication skills have a greater understanding of academics by questioning a topic. Moreover, the students are also able to explain their thoughts and expressions effectively, which is the most crucial factor for teamwork or collaborative learning. Therefore, communication skills have several benefits for university students, which enhances collaborative learning and working on group projects and assignments (Saqr et al. 2018). Collaborative learning helps to develop higher-level thinking by using oral communication skills. It enriches leadership skills in academics as well as work life. Therefore, communication skills improve career opportunities and reduce the risk of falling.
Research and analysis are one crucial part of academics as it is essential for developing an in-depth understanding of learning topics and models. Research and analysis skills of individual University students enhance the analytical skills of students which is effective to foster critical thinking in the minds of the students (Spaska et al. 2021). Analytical skills are one of the crucial factors in recent times, which help to enhance problem-solving and decision-making skills as well. Research and analytical skills of the students also increase interest in learning and gaining knowledge by enhancing greater understanding of topics. Analytical skills of students are encouraged to understand the causes and effects of any problem or issue and resolve these by effective decision making. It also enhances the utilisation of available resources, which increases opportunities for the students.
It can be concluded that academic skills are required for the future growth of students. The study has reflected required academic skills and their benefits in academic as well as work life.
Personal professional development (PPD) is one of the crucial factors from professional as well as personal development aspects. PPD helps to develop and learn new skills for increasing productivity in professional life and set goals to achieve. The report has focused on discussing concepts on PPD and related theories and models. It will identify and discuss challenges in professional and personal development and apply a PPD model for addressing issues and challenges. The report has prioritised problem-solving and decision-making skills for resolving issues and challenges. The report has also provided solutions to address challenges and develop new skills to increase productivity and efficiency.
Personal and professional development is stated about various skills that are necessary to improve talents and potentiality of an individual related to their professional personal life. The main purpose of this personal and professional development is to set appropriate goals by understanding potentiality and eligibility that help to develop effective planning regarding implementation of skill and knowledge that guide to achieve success goals. Personal and professional development are the most important factors of university students that help them identify their interest and potential to develop their career path and also help to analyse their gaps to develop effective strategies to engage knowledge and skill in their path that help them to achieve their success goals. Higher education is a challenging stage for students in which they know about various opportunities regarding their future scope and also want to develop a variety of new skills and knowledge to achieve their success goals. For this purpose, transversal training is provided by various universities based on general training or competencies that are necessary for various work fields (Sá and Serpa, 2018). As per MBA students, this developmental plan helps students to analyse their job prospects that are appropriate and provide a bright future, develop necessary skills like leadership that help them to sustain in their job and strategic development of their competencies that help them to be a good leaders to achieve their goals (Rubens et al, 2018).
The study has applied “Kolb’s reflective model”. Kolb’s reflection model is appropriate for experiential learning, which enables experiment, a reflection of experimental leading and conceptualisation of learning is effective to develop skills (Nicole-brown.co.uk, 2022). The basic idea of this model is to evaluate the experience and involve those experiments in the learning process. Moreover, this model allows students to identify flaws and resolve them by applying problem-solving approaches and decision-making skills. This model consists of four stages for learning through experiments.
Stage 1: Concrete experience
This stage of the reflection model allows students to evaluate a situation. This situation enables the marking and evaluation of their problem-solving skills in a specific situation. This stage describes the situations and evaluates the effectiveness of student skills and their appropriate applications in this situation. Continuous experiments and evaluation of skills and opportunities of students enhance systematic collection which helps to improve existing skills and develop new learning practices.
Stage 2: Reflective-Observation
This stage of this model enhances the proper evaluation of skills and learning models. It reflects students' problem-solving approach and strategy to practical situations. This reflection and observation help to understand the advantages and disadvantages of the effectiveness of learning skill and their application. Observations also help to improve existing skills and reflex flaws or drawbacks which may affect students' decision-making skills. It also provides an opportunity to reflect the behaviour of students to themselves and analyse situations.
Stage 3: Abstract-conceptualisation
This stage of reflection model provides analysis of observations and finds alternative models and approaches which could be used for effectively tackling practical situations. The stages also provide opportunities to find out the factors, which can be considered to track similar situations to enhance decision-making skills and improve skills. It also reflects the requirement for consulting with other colleagues and team members to find alternative approaches and increase knowledge. Communication with others enhances critical thinking and increases innovative ideas to resolve and address similar problems and issues.
Stage 4: Active-Experimentation
This stage allows a student to implement newly learned skills and approaches into the working process in similar situations. It also enhances practising theoretical knowledge as well as practical experience knowledge to enhance the effectiveness of learning skills and problem-solving approaches. It also enhances the identification of crops and opportunities to apply skills effectively. Moreover, this stage also refers to the beginning of a new cycle for reflection.
Kolb's reflection model helped me to identify various challenges regarding my personal and professional development for my future career. This theory is based on four stages that help me to identify challenges related to my self-growth or personal development from my previous experiences. It can be seen that several factors affect my personal growth. These are:
Goal refers to the aim of an individual that helps him to develop new things to achieve success. As per my opinion, goals indicate my potentiality and interest that help me to achieve something desirable in my future but due to a lack of knowledge about my potentiality and interest, I failed to develop effective goals for my future. Even it creates issues in determining the correct path.
Self-discipline is the most important factor of personal development that indicates the ability to "learn new things", "stay motivated" and engage in the proper activity by maintaining healthy physical and mental health. Self-discipline also indicates an effective schedule that helps to achieve success in life. I failed challenges to maintain my self-discipline due to a lack of goals in my life. It makes me feel restless and less motivated regarding my future scope.
Defensiveness indicates insecurity in front of others. Moreover, through defensive behaviour, an individual can easily cover his disability. As per my experiences when I have low knowledge and confidence about a topic I showed my aggression in front of everyone which makes it challenging for me to interact with people. Moreover, it creates challenges in my personal development.
On other hand there are some challenges related to my professional development these are:
Management of time is an important factor in professional development. Proper management of time helps an individual to concentrate on a particular task and get a successive result by avoiding other distractions of life. As per my experience, it can be seen that I faced challenges to complete my projects and tasks at a particular time due to less concentration overwork. Moreover, I mainly preferred doing many tasks in a single time that create challenges and increase stress regarding tasks.
Maintaining a proper balance regarding work and personal life helps an individual to lead a flexible schedule and can't feel any pressure regarding tasks. In my past, lack of self-discipline and improper goals regarding my future created challenges for me to maintain a good work-life.
Communication is a crucial factor of professional life that helps to interact with various people to gather experiences and knowledge regarding tasks or any future opportunities. It can be seen that due to my introverted nature, I have faced challenges to interact with my friends and colleagues and I was less able to gather knowledge and experience. This creates challenges in my professional development process (Rohid and Rusmawati, 2019).
SWOT analysis is used to identify my strength, weakness, opportunity and threats that help me to enhance my personal and professional development to achieve goals (Leiber et al, 2018).
Kolb's reflective model is based on experiences that help me to identify my gaps regarding my personal and professional development process and by following steps of this model it helps me take the necessary implementation of skill and knowledge in my developmental process to get a bright future (Idris et al, 2020). As per my previous experience, I faced challenges due to lack of goals and self-disciplines that affect proper understanding of my potentiality and interest and create challenges to keep myself motivated and engaged in a proper activity. Moreover, due to my defensive nature, it creates challenges to interact with my friends and colleagues for teamwork. On the other hand, I also identified my challenges regarding time-management and proper balance of work-life that made it challenging to concentrate on my task to complete it within time. In addition due to lack of communication ability, I faced challenges regarding the collection of information or sharing my opinion with others.
As per observation of my previous experiences, it helped me develop new skills and knowledge by pepper analysis of my strength, weakness, opportunity and threat by implementation of SWOT analysis. Moreover, this analysis of my nature helps me to get a proper understanding of my ability regarding problem-solving or decision making in my future. It can be seen that my strength, determination and patience regarding a task help me to take proper decisions about a task and also enhance my problem-solving ability related to a task.
My weakness stated about proper training or education that builds my knowledge related to a task and makes me confident to make necessary decisions. Moreover, to manage my defensive nature I need to work on my education to develop knowledge and also increase communication with others to gather experiences (Morris, 2020). After analysing opportunities, it helps me to allow myself in various learning or training programmes to enhance my skill and efficiency for a better opportunity. Moreover, my defensive and introverted nature it creates challenges for me to maintain a healthy work environment that needs to be changed by taking effective training to enhance my communication and teamwork approaches.
After analysing strengths and weaknesses from previous experiences of life, it indicates the implementation of new skills and training in the developmental process to get a successful future. To implement new skills or training in personal and professional developmental processes, a proper action plan is needed that indicates the required training and its resources to enhance knowledge and efficiency about personal and professional life. The above action plan is stated about training regarding communication skills for 4weeks through online classes or training to interact with various people and gather information from their experiences that help to get successive results in future. Leadership skills are also important to make a leadership quality to build teamwork and connect with people (Padronand Stone, 2019). Moreover, leadership training for 2 weeks helps to develop leadership qualities that help to lead teams or followers. Workplace ethics mainly provide training or education to maintain a healthy workplace and reduce conflict among employees. Moreover, training for 2 weeks through online classes or training helps to amplify workplace behaviour. Time management is another crucial training that helps to maintain work-life balance and also complete tasks without avoiding distraction to maintain deadlines. Grooming programs enhance creative thinking ability that helps to get various opportunities regarding the future.
It can be concluded from this report that personal and professional development is one of the most important factors that help an individual to implement necessary skills and knowledge to get effective results regarding their future scope. This report stated Kolb's reflection model that helps to identify strengths and weaknesses from analysis of past experiences. Moreover, SWOT analysis helps to get proper understanding of future opportunities and threats that help to develop effective action plans regarding training that help to reduce challenges and help to achieve success goals.
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