Academic Skills and PDP: Personal and Professional Development

This report discusses the theory of personal and professional development, the value of short, medium, and long-term goals, and the importance of a personal development plan (PDP). It covers topics such as personal development, professional development, short-term goals, medium-term goals, long-term goals, and PDP plan chart.

Academic skills and PDP
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................2
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................2
Personal development..........................................................................................................2
Professional development....................................................................................................3
Short term goals and its importance...................................................................................3
medium-term goals, identifying at least three personal examples.........................................3
long-term goals, identifying at least three personal examples...............................................4
Personal development Plan..................................................................................................5
PDP plan chart........................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
References:.......................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Academic skills are the abilities, strategies, and competencies that assist the students or
learners to succeed in the academic setting. These skills are helpful to a student in gaining
mastery in the academic course for the better grades for the future growth in career.
Development of academic skills assists the student in improving the ability to learn, interact with
other peers and most importantly to complete the project and test (Rose and et. al., 2020). A
personal development plan is one of the action plans that is useful to student in identification of
individual goals through strengths and weaknesses and also provide an opportunity to improve
the skills in particular time. The present report on academic skills and PDP will express the
theory of personal and professional development. The study also describes the value of short
term, medium term and long term goals with identification of my personal three goals. In the end
report, demonstrates the value of PDP and also there is practical representation of PDP.
MAIN BODY
Personal development
Personal development is essential for the individual's self growth, confidence and respect.
It is a lifelong process in which a person is able to assess self qualities and skills that are
considered as aim in life to improve or maximize personal potential. For me personal
development is one of the most active decisions in order to strive in thrive towards continuous
self development which help an individual to enhance the quality of life, enhance personality,
and by this person try to become better version of ourselves (Prayitno and Titikusumawati,
2018). Personal development is a continuous process that remains active in individual’s entire
life span thereby not limiting a person at any stage of life from growing and learning. Personal
development carries huge importance and value in one's life to upscale the thinking, quality of
life and to facilitate the human capital and employability. Personal development process is
enhancement of certain self improvement skills in order to gain satisfaction and success in life.
Brain always requires new information in order to flourish therefore personal learning and
development is a continuous process that provides significant advantages to a individual to attain
career growth. Personal development helps an individual to gain clarity for the personal vision
and life goals thereby improving the existing skills through education, learning or guidance.
Thus, it helps to an individual to have better and bigger of life.
2

Professional development
Professional development is the process to enhance or improve the employability skills,
capabilities and knowledge to perform best at the workplace setting. To the employee or the
employer, the professional development is useful in expanding the current knowledge and skills
as per the changing market trends and employability criteria. For gaining success in the current
employment scenario there is requirement of continuous training in education which is
commonly known as a professional development (Jacobs and Wright, 2018). Professional
development is a process of training education that a labour or work and needs in order to
succeed in the desired career or job role. Different sorts of different employability criteria as per
which an employee or an employer must and has necessary desired skills to become better and
efficient employee at workplace. On the job training is an essential part of the professional
development as this concept cover practical learning and education to a worker that helps a
person to succeed in the career. In context of employees this is use benefit of professional
development as it helps to increase the employees to stay with their business also buy this
employee can hold a significant competitive position in the industry. Individual engaged in
gaining professional development feel highly confident which is important for success the career
as a person is able to learn rightful skills and capabilities which opens the doors of multiple
opportunity to gain future growth in career.
Short term goals and its importance
Short term goals- the short term goals are required to achieved in the near future such as in a
week, month or maximum a year (Soria and Werner, 2018). The few short term goals I want
achieve are:
 To design and track daily routine schedule
 To begin reading newspaper daily
 To improve two soft skills (i.e. Networking and conflict resolution skills)
medium-term goals, identifying at least three personal examples.
Medium term goals- there are intermediate goals between the long term and short term
goals that hep an individual to reach towards the long term goals (Grit, 2019). For the
accomplishment of medium term goals I will need approximate time of 2-3 years. My medium
term goals are the climbing ladders to achieve my long term goals which will help me to improve
3

my personal and professional development cycle. I set my medium term goals to improve my
professional development and to scale up the bar of success in my professional life.
 To attain diploma certificate in digital marketing to upscale my resume: for the
promotion of the employment and to get employment in best MNC my resume must
reflect the talent and achievements.
 To attain the highest grades in all subjects in university: getting high grades and
merits in the university are part of personal and professional development. This will also
help in accomplishment of long term goals.
 To get enrolled in top university to pursue post graduation: completing post
graduation from top university will add stars to my resume for future jobs. Also, through
that I will be able to enhance my skills and knowledge in guidance of best teachers of
best university.
long-term goals, identifying at least three personal examples
Long term goals- Long term goals are the big goals of the life of an individual that
need plenty of hard work and time in order to taste the flavour the success of those goals (Zacher
and et. al., 2019). I personally use short term goals to enhance my personal skills which also help
me during my professional development (Guddemi, 2020). To accomplish my long term goals I
will need more than 5 years. The long term goals lead value to my personal and professional
development as there are the dreams that come true through hard work and efforts. My long term
goals are-
 To get promotion as the senior manager of the marketing department of top MNC:
this is the my key long term goal as I have keen interest in marketing field and want to
pursue my future employability in this specific field. Becoming a senior manager at the
top most MNC is the matter of pride for me and also this is my ambition and passion.
 To buy new big size personal house: with the time it is very important for me to have
my own house for the better lifestyle and comfort. Buying a new house is a life time
investment for me.
 To repay all my loans and debts: in order experience best of the earned monetary
success firstly my long term goals is to clear my all of my loans and debts that I have
take to gain future growth (Callao and Lacson, 2021).
4

Personal development Plan
Personal development plan commonly referred as PDP is the systematic and structured
framework that helps and individual or learner to develop an action plan that help in
identification of individual goals and ways to achieve them (Tsai, Vanderford and Muindi,
2018). There is huge importance of PDP as it helps a person to improve significant area of needs
and also develop to meet the desired goals in specific time with the success measuring criteria
which make PDP a never ending process of the life of a learner. The PDP is the self reflection
and self evaluation form that is mostly used in higher education or the workplace to develop or
improve skills and capabilities. The key values or importance of Personal development Plan are
discussed below:
 It is helpful in providing clear goals to the individual.
 In context of workplace it helps employees to improve their performance by
developing significant employability skills.
 It helps a person in tracking the progress in personal and professional development
as the PDP motivates the person to achieve the mentioned goals in specific
mentioned time period.
 The Personal development plan holds a great value in a life of student at the higher
education as it helps a person to improve sense of purpose and also enhance the
mental well being by reducing stress (Corcoran and et. al., 2018).
PDP plan chart
Goals Duration to
achieve goal
What actions
have been
planned to
achieve the goal
How to measure
performance
How to get to know
that the goal is
achieved
To improve
two soft skills
(i.e.
Networking
and conflict
resolution
6 months I will join student
club at university
to improve my
networking skills
(Grit, 2019). For
improving
conflict resolution
I will participate
actively into the
group activities
where there is need
of following skills
to compute my
improvement and
When I will have
huge network and
contacts in my contact
list and also I will be
part of multiple
groups. When In team
project I will be able
5

skills)
(short term
goal)
skills I will take
guidance from the
tutor or coaching
institution and
also practice
regularly from the
materials
provided.
performance. to resolve team issues.
To get
enrolled in top
university to
pursue post
graduation
(medium term
goals)
1 year I will prioritize
my preferences of
top colleges and
develop a
checklist. I will
work on my
academic
knowledge to
attain good grades
in graduate
course. I will also
work on my SOP.
When I will be
having best SOP
written for my
interview at top
universities. When I
will be gaining
merit and good
grades in current
graduate course
(Cottrell, 2020).
When I will get call
and admission letter
from top most
university to pursue
my post graduation.
To get
promotion as
the senior
manager of the
marketing
department of
top MNC.
(Long term
goals)
5 years For this I will
improve my
marketing skills
and convert more
and more targets
into active leads
for the company.
With networking
skills I will
develop
relationship with
I will evaluate my
performance
through summative
and formative
employee feedback
and also through my
appraisals and
achievements during
employability years.
When I will be
promoted to the
senior manager of the
marketing department
of top MNC and also
attain hike in my
salary.
6

more international
clients to grow
company
internationally.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it is concluded for an individual personal and professional growth and
development has huge important in order to attain future career success. For the personal
development individual seem to work on its own capabilities to improve personality whereas for
the professional development individual work hard on improving employability skills to perform
task better at particular job role. Thus, there are short, medium and long term goals that help a
person to gain professional and personal development. It is also concluded that to attain all the
goals, the individual utilize the framework of PDP to have structured approach towards attaining
the desired goals in desired timeframe.
References:
Books and Journals
Rose, H and et. al., 2020. What drives success in English medium taught courses? The interplay
between language proficiency, academic skills, and motivation. Studies in Higher
Education, 45(11), pp.2149-2161.
Prayitno, B.A. and Titikusumawati, E., 2018. Enhancing Students' Higher Order Thinking Skills
in Science through INSTAD Strategy. Journal of Baltic Science Education, 17(6),
pp.1046-1055.
Jacobs, J.M. and Wright, P.M., 2018. Transfer of life skills in sport-based youth development
programs: A conceptual framework bridging learning to application. Quest, 70(1), pp.81-
99.
Soria, K.M. and Werner, L., 2018. Academic Leadership Courses: Catalysts for Students'
Retention and Graduation. Journal of Leadership Education, 17(3).
Grit, R., 2019. Managing your competencies: personal development plan. Routledge.
Zacher, H and et. al., 2019. Academic career development: A review and research
agenda. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 110, pp.357-373.
7

Callao, M.B. and Lacson, J.C., 2021. Tracking Self-Efficacy And Career Readiness Of Junior
High: Adoptive Career Development Plan. Elementary Education Online, 20(4),
pp.3372-3385.
Tsai, J.W., Vanderford, N.L. and Muindi, F., 2018. Optimizing the utility of the individual
development plan for trainees in the biosciences. Nature Biotechnology, 36(6), pp.552-
553.
Corcoran, R.P and et. al., 2018. Effective universal school-based social and emotional learning
programs for improving academic achievement: A systematic review and meta-analysis
of 50 years of research. Educational Research Review, 25, pp.56-72.
Cottrell, S., 2020. Teaching study skills and supporting learning. Bloomsbury Publishing.
8