Skills Journal- reflecting on your personal skills development.

Take time to consider and reflect on your personal development and key employability skills. Comment on the skills you want to improve and why, and also
on those skills you are happy with and state why. The journal needs to be completed via the VLE twice during your programme (at the end of semester 1
and towards the end of semester 2). The final submission in semester 2 will be marked.

The skills journal should provide an analysis of your learning, skill acquisition and experience throughout semesters 1 and 2. This means that you should not
simply describe what you have done, but critically analyse your experience from the perspective of your own development.

Key skill Reflection of your progress:

Critically reflect and comment on:
 What you did – include examples of when you have used each skill (from academic study, extra-curricular
activities, internships and work)
 What you learned
 How to improve (your objectives, action to be taken and measures of your progress, for example, achievements,
self and peer evaluation, tutor feedback).

Academic writing (I have the Writing is an ongoing process where different symbols are accordingly arranged in a certain form in order to form words
ability to write essays and and sentences. Throughout the semesters I have learned academic writing very well as the ability of writing skills through
reports, clearly, accurately and writing essays, reports and assignments is increased and it helps to learn more about different topics through gathering
coherently. I can critically information from different journals and researches. This also helps to improve the searching from relevant resources and
analyse, interpret and evaluate also helps to evaluate several topics critically and to provide its analysis and interpretation in written format. Although I
information from a wide am planning to increase my writing skills through learning from different research journals in order to increase the
variety of relevant sources and learning for writing my own research paper. Writing is the basic skill which can be improved through practice over and
correctly reference sources I over again.
use).

The presentation skills also enhanced during this semester. My presentation skills were weak due to which I joined

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Presentations (I have the communication classes in order to improve my communication skills and confidence while speaking. The ability of
ability to structure my structuring the presentation also enhanced throughout the semester as i have learn to present in front of others through
presentation, use visual aids constructing it in different styles. Through presentations speaker is able to transfer the thoughts and ideas among the
and be confident. I have learnt audience from the communication and slides of presentation making it tangible. Writing provides a clearer view of
about different presentation spoken words through constructing presentation it’s important to cover all the aspects and highlight tem in
styles) communication as well.

Team work is an important factor for student as well as professional life also. Teamwork often leads to successful results
Working with others (group / of projects. Group involvement in any project leads to innovative ideas, brainstorming and hard work of every member. It
team work) and interpersonal also includes disagreements and difficulties sometimes. During these semesters learned working in teams and groups to
communication. accomplish the projects. I have learned that the important aspect in teamwork is knowing all the members and provide
(I understand the issues proper recognition to them, mediate all the disputes, divide the project among all equally and build a relation of trust
involved in successful group among all in order to work together. Working in a team also increases the interpersonal communication and increases
work. I have developed my the ability of motivation and working in an organization. In these semesters I have worked with several students as a
ability to work in groups and team which enhances my team working and management also.
can contribute effectively–
cross cultural communication,
negotiating, and motivating. I
am able to listen to others
effectively and can express my
ideas clearly. I have the ability
to take responsibility and / or
provide direction for a group).

It’s important to gather information and processed it in a useful form to provide results. As a marketing student it’s

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I.T , digital skills, data analysis important to know data handling and its analysis, the marketing analyst expects to hire marketing employees having
(I have the ability to use office expertise of tracking all the data and analyse it in a useful manner. Companies demands employees having the skills of
software effectively and handling big data and analyse it in a useful manner to increase the business value. Data literacy increases the
software appropriate to my competence of finding, maintaining, manipulating and interpreting data. The need for skills of data management and
marketing programme. I am data analysis is the new requirement for marketing companies as they are dealing with big data and requires skilled
confident in my ability to workforce. Data analysis helps to break te big macro data into micro one, it also helps to identify ruling bias from proper
analyse and interpret data, statistical treatments. I have learned data gathering and analysing it into these semesters through gathering data for
including quantitative). assignments and projects and analysing it in order to make it into a meaningful form and provide the interpretations. This
also increase the ability of using different software’s for data handling and analysing such as Microsoft office. I still feel to
focus on quantitative data analysing to interpret the results more accurately due to which I am learning different new
software’s for quantitative data analysing such as SPSS.

Time management is an essential tool in order to get work done and effectively. Time management is necessary in an
Time management organization as well as for students also. Time is always limited and once it is wasted nothing can be undo. The key to
/organisation success will lead to time management in order to get success in an organization one needs to manage the time to
(I can manage my time accomplish the goals same is in the case of studies; students manage time to accomplish the assignments and to achieve
effectively, prioritise tasks and good results. From these semesters I have learned to manage time and divide the task, assignments and learning in
work to deadlines). different time zones in order to complete all the aspects, this helps me a lot to achieve timely results.

It is important to have global awareness in order to compete in international business, while working in an international
Professionalism, commercial firm one must face several issues related to cultural issues due to diversity and also needs to take decisions from global
and global awareness (I have shifts in economy in order to deal with it employees learn them from their education. Global awareness enhances the
an appreciation of the global ability to understand cross cultural understanding and the global diversity. During these semesters te surveys and
marketplace and cross cultural presentations increases the professional behaviour in me and from several projects the learning and global awareness
issues and an understanding of increases a lot but still there is more need to increase global awareness which I am hoping to learn in further semesters.
commercial issues of the
industries I am interested in. I
have an understanding of the
expectations of prospective
employers).

Professional networks are a never changing group of people whom you connect, share and learn. Such kind of groups

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Building professional networks identifies our values, perspectives and our expertise areas. For students teachers provide and build such networks for
(creating connections in helping students to row and learn as a professional. Students connect with several other professional corporate through
business and online e.g. Linked joining LinkedIn, Makerbase, Plaxo and beyond.com. I have join LinkedIn and Beyond.com in order to connect with
In, attendance at different professionals having expertise which I am interested to learn. Beyond.com helps to showcase my portfolio and
presentations, events and also helps to send resume to others just as LinkedIn also helps to build more connections.
societies)
Career and employability ( I Career development learning helps the students learn knowledge, skills and concepts which increases their employability
have researched and skills and their careers. I have made a professional resume in order to increase employability chance. I mentioned several
undertaken opportunities to employability skills in my CV to aware the employers about skills I have such as communication skills, data analysis,
enhance my CV; I have a problem solving, team working, and organizational planning and time management. The job market requires several skills
professional CV which reflects which I highlighted in the CV. The focus on employability potential in higher education provide several benefits such as it
my skills and experience; I have increases the motivation of students and students takes more interest in subjects which improves the employability skills.
researched the industries,
career options and job market
in the country I expect to work
in).

Key skill (here you can add Reflection of your progress:

your own skills which are in Critically reflect and comment on:
addition to those listed above)  What you did – include examples of when you have used each skill (from academic study, extra-curricular
activities, internships and work)
 What you learned
 How to improve (your objectives, action to be taken and measures of your progress, for example, achievements,
self and peer evaluation, tutor feedback).
I have done internship in marketing company which enhances my professional behaviour towards work and also
increases the career opportunity through mentioning it in my CV. In internship I have learn dealing with problems and
time management in an organization. While working with other interns and with our supervisor I have learnt to work in a
team.

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Lynn Pattison, Senior Teaching Fellow (Professional Development), Marketing Division, August 2017 (Adapted from: Understanding the value of
reflection, Paul Ramsay / Pat Maier / Geraldine Price)