Professional Competences

This session we had to do a self evaluation of our professional competences. We had to measure our competences in various areas like personal management, communication,managing information,research and analysis,project task, organizational skills, teamwork,commitment to quality, professional behavior,social responsibility and continuous learning. This task was very important to us as a student because this would help us to get a clear picture of where we stand in regards of these competences and how we could improve them.

I found this evaluation particularly helpful in regards to knowing our skills and experiences we have and how it could be related and useful in the career pathway. It was similar to SWAN analysis but in more depth to  view myself professionally. It helped me to judge myself like where my strength lies, what are my weaknesses and what needs to be done in order to work on them.Knowing them while we are student and improving will help us get ready to face future challenges in our career for instance interviews. What i found challenging while doing this evaluation was to rate myself and justify my ratings for particular competences. However, after completing the task sheet i found that there are a lot of areas i need to work on to build my skills. 

I will do this by trying to learn new skills by showing interest in various activities from where i can gain valuable knowledge, apply for an internship program, working on things i am lacking on like time management and organizational skills.This i will do by first of all making a timetable, where i will divide my times for school, break, lunch work and leisure. Also ill set a target for each day to complete all my work on time.Lastly, i think it is important to do this evaluation time to time as to compare myself how far i have developed.

In the lesson we had a task that was very similar to last year in MPD. We did a SWAIN analysis of ourself which stands for Strength, Weakness, Aspirations, Interest, Needs. This is a very important tool in order to see myself where i stand , identify what areas i am good at and where i need to make improvements to reach a certain goal or target.

  

In order to get a more appropriate result we were asked to pair up in two and discuss our SWAIN that is most likely related to our career pathways. Unfortunately, i did not get the opportunity to discuss my viewpoints and ideas with another partner as i missed the lecture. Anyhow since i had done something similar in my previous lesson in MPD it helped me a great deal to do my SWAIN analysis. 

I found that it was quite easy to mention about my strength, aspiration, interest and needs whereas i could not think off many weaknesses. I also realized being completely honest about my weakness can seriously hamper towards my career targets. Having said that i realized that if you know how to tackle the weakness it might prove to be a strength in that matter. For example one of the weakness i mentioned was (perfectionist) this can either be a strength or a weakness but for me i mentioned it under my weakness but in the process of doing this analysis i realized how to improve on my weakness that will help me in my career pathways. 

After completely upon this analysis, i discovered that i have a long way to achieve my goals which could only be done if i make  certain targets and work on them. This is what my SWAIN analysis looks like where i have also mentioned how i am going to achieve my goals and work on them. 

   Reflective writing is a major part in our foundation degree program. It not only allows students to      think critically but helps to understand better. However, to write a good reflective statement Victoria gave us an insight to Kolb's learning Cycle and few other useful guidelines.

 I learnt that the ability to reflect on our experience and knowledge helps us to make improvements. The  Kolbs learning cycle helps a great deal if we follow the four  essential elements. For me the most important thing i learnt from the lesson was how to structure my writing. I also went through my own little research and found out great informations on reflective writing. Upon reading these guidelines, i realized the mistake i had been making on my reflective journals previously. One of the major error was my reflective journals were very descriptive rather than interpreting what i learnt from the event and what could i have done better.

Having said that, this knowledge is very essential for me as a learner as it will help me improve my skills on reflective writing. I will do this by making effective key notes during lectures so that i can recollect my memories of what i learnt. I also tend to do my own research on the topics that are covered in class for more informations, this will help me to critically analyze and reflect upon the topic in more depth. 

In future it will definitely help me in universities and also in work place where it has become increasingly important to reflect on topics or any event. This will help me identify my mistakes and make improvements. Below i have attached a useful link that i looked upon for my reference.

http://mycourse.solent.ac.uk/mod/book/tool/print/index.php?id=2732