Study Skills for Higher Education

This report discusses the six skills that are required for students to be successful in university and their importance in the workplace. It also provides recommendations for improving the content of a CV.

Study Skills for Higher
Education

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................3
Main Body...................................................................................................................................................3
Discuss six skills which are required by a student to be successful at university and also discuss their
importance at work place.........................................................................................................................3
Recommendations for improving the content of CV...............................................................................6
CONCLUSION...........................................................................................................................................8
REFRENCES............................................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Education is the foundation of bright future as it provides knowledge, skills which are
important in order to get success in personal and professional life. During education, an
individual gets a lot of skills and competencies which further assist them towards achievement of
career goals & objectives in stipulated period of time. Students are required to pay attention
during academics for developing necessary skills so that they can perform their roles &
responsibilities at work place in an efficient manner in future period of time (Suleman, 2018). In
present time, there is extensive competition prevail in job market so it is imperative for an
individual to acquire certain skills and potential for creating unique identity. Apart from this, CV
is a vital part of career as it provides a quick summary about academic excellence, experience,
personality traits of a person. So, CV needs to be created with utmost diligence for getting
profound impression on recruiters. The present report is based on skills & competencies that are
essential to develop during academic setting and also play a crucial role in performing well at
work place. Further, recommendations for improving CV of students have also been covered in
the following report.
Main Body
Discuss six skills which are required by a student to be successful at university and also discuss
their importance at work place
It is stated that skills are crucial to grow and succeed as a student and also while working
as a professional. It is stated that skills are helpful in getting success in all aspects of life whether
it is academics, sports and career. Each and every person differs in terms of skills, potential
which make them able to perform assigned job in best possible way. In present challenging
environment, it is quiet difficult for an individual to get a job and sustain in the job without
having different skills and abilities (Hidayat, 2018). Apart from the professional significance,
skills also enrich personality which is important to put a good impression on others. Being a
student, there are ample of skills need to be develop during academics so that it will be easy for
students to crack the interview and step in the corporate worlds with a good job. If, an individual
has different capability then it is quiet easy to make own place within company. Skills and

competencies also enable a person to perform assigned work with proficiency which is
imperative for making an enriching career. For this purpose, certain skills which are important as
a student and simultaneously play a crucial role to perform tasks at work place are mentioned
below:
Communication skills: Communication refers to a process of exchanging information
between two parties. Here, the person who sends the message is known as sender and the other
person who receive and provide revert the message appropriately is known as receiver. In present
time, communication has become a crucial skill whether academics or professional career.
Communication is a way by which receiver gets the appropriate meaning of message and provide
suitable reply accordingly (Gerken, Beausaert and Segers, 2016). A students needs to deliver
presentations, research paper, assignments and so on for which, it is important to have good
communication skills so that audience get the appropriate meaning. Apart from this, a student
also needs to participate in inter and intra college competitions such as debate, group discussion,
role play and more. For ensuring remarkable performance in academic activities, it is vital to
have ability to effectively communicate with others. When, students step in professional life then
communication skills play a vital role in putting good impression on colleagues and managers.
With the help of this skill, it is possible to maintain proper interaction with other people at work
place. In addition to this, communication skill assists an individual to exchange necessary
information with different internal as well as external parties.
Time management: It refers to the skill which is important for managing time
effectively. A student needs to perform a lot of activities at a same time for which, it is
imperative to have a proper schedule. Without time management capabilities, a student might fail
in submitting assignments, project, and research papers in predefined time (Drysdale and et. al.,
2016). In addition to this, time management is also important for preparing a complete schedule
for studies which is important to pass the exam with good grades. Further, time management
skills is also requires while working in corporate culture as here, a person needs to do
multitasking by performing different activities at a time. Time management skills make a person
enable to achieve set targets and get the assigned work done within deadlines in an efficient
manner.

Leadership skills: Leadership skill makes a person enables to lead, guide as well as
support other people while working in a team for achieving common goals. To get success in
academic setting, it is important to have the capability to lead others (Ahrari and et. al., 2016).
Leadership is to take responsibility of bringing positive changes while working in a team.
Leaders think about the whole team and prioritize team success before own success. This skill is
also important for performing tasks at work place as it provides the capability to lead the whole
team in right direction with proper guidance.
Team work: It is regarded as the collaborative efforts of team members for achieving
common goals within stipulated period of time. In university, students need to work in team
during academic activities for which, it is vital to have team work abilities for achieving common
goals in an efficient manner. Team working skill is imperative to achieve predefined team goals
by working with team member in collaborative manner. While working in corporate world, an
individual needs to perform team task for achieving set goals in an efficient manner. This skill
develops the competencies to work with higher coordination and collaboration within team.
Problem solving: Problem solving skill is crucial to deal with present and future
problems in an efficient manner. It acts as a guide to deal with future uncertainties in an efficient
manner. It is analyzed that students face a lot of problems during studies so they need to have
ability to deal with obstacles in an effective manner for ensuring future success and growth
(Gachino and Worku, 2019). With the problem solving attitude student can handle everything
from realizing their goals in real context to preparing projects & assignments in timely manner.
Here, problem solving skills are also helpful for working professionals in order to deal with daily
obstacles arise at work place. With this skill, they can provide appropriate suggestions for
betterment of company that will improve their performance at work place.
Creativity and innovation: In present time, creativity and innovation is highly crucial for
introducing innovative products and services in market place. Creativity makes a person unique
and also helps in making different identity. For a student, it is vital to embrace creativity in each
and every task. Creativity facilitates innovation which is important to sustain in current
competitive world (Bak and Jordan, 2017). Further, this skill is also helpful in performing task
related to jobs in an efficient manner. Creativity allows an individual to bring advancements in

market place in terms of unique products & services which further help in formulating loyal
customer groups.
Recommendations for improving the content of CV
Curriculum vitiate (CV) is a document which provides summarized information regarding
education, background, experience, skills of a person. Main purpose of preparing CV is to
market own skills and competencies in front of recruiters for getting a good job. CV is
considered as the first and most crucial step to enter into corporate world (Williams, 2019). It is
the first impression of candidate over recruiter which further affects the probability of final
selection. Student need to prepare CV with higher consideration and need to include all the
relevant information about education, projects, skills so that they get notice by recruiters. Some
suggestions which are helpful in order to improve the content of CV are given below:
 For boosting the quality of CV, students are required to use the standard formal and for
making it more appealing. There are some standard fonts for CV writing such as times
new roman, Calibri and more. However, some people also use other fonts such as Comic
sans, Courier and more to embark creativity in CV writing. In addition to this, it is need
to be structure in such a manner which covers most of the white space throughput the
page. Here, headings also need to be used while making CV for making it more attractive
and appealing.
 The another recommendations sates to shorten paragraph for enhancing the readability.
Here, it is recommended to form short paragraph between two or three lines so that it is
easy for recruiter to extract the necessary information. Apart from this, CV needs to be
prepare using simple language and vocabulary. Complicated words and sentences might
reduce down the readability of document.
 It is common to make grammatical, punctuation mistakes while preparing CV which
might put adverse impact on recruiters. So, students are recommended to proof read the
CV in order to identify any mistakes related to grammar, punctuation and spelling. For
this purpose, there are a lot of softwares also present by which one can easily identify the
mistakes in document and make necessary corrections (Brown, 2018). So, students are
required to take a look over hard copy of CV before forward it to recruiters in order to put
better impression over job providers.

 In present time, recruiters look for creativity and innovation so students are suggested to
use statistics and number rather than written content to make the CV more appealing and
attractive. It is stated that recruiters often avoid to go through with written content as it is
easy to get the necessary information by looking at statistics and numbers. However,
including statics and number is tedious process as students need to do a lot of research for
this but it provides invaluable results. Here, one needs to use graphs, charts to represent
the different sections of CV such as education, experience, skills and more.
 It is not advisable to use the same CV for each and every job position due to different
requirements of each position, it is also important to make changes in CV accordingly.
Here, students need to go through with job description for which they are going to apply
and then make necessary modification in document to make it tailored for current job
opening. They are required to make necessary changes in the section of skills and
abilities for improving the probability of selection.
 To improve the content of CV students need to formulate an effective and unique career
objective which alien with the goals of organization (Tran, 2018). They need to prepare
such an objective by which recruiter gets the clear idea about their future goals and
objectives. Objective statement needs to be clear and structured in a proper and
systematic way for getting timely response.

CONCLUSION
It is assess with the above mentioned information that skill and knowledge building is
really important during academics as it provides opportunity to grow and succeed in future
period of time. It is analyzed that skills make a person enable to perform particular task in proper
and systematic way. It is the expertise & talent which makes an individual enable to perform
assigned task with perfection. There is requirement to make necessary improvements in CV so
that students can make an appealing CV for getting noticed by recruiters in current competitive
market.

REFRENCES
Books and Journals
Ahrari and et. al., 2016. Deepening critical thinking skills through civic engagement in
Malaysian higher education. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 22, pp.121-128.
Bak, O. and Jordan, C., 2017. Linking industry and higher education: Assessing the skills
requirements. Logistics and transport focus, pp.55-56.
Brown, L.S., 2018. Soft skill development in the higher education curriculum: A case study. IUP
Journal of Soft Skills, 12(4), pp.7-29.
Drysdale and et. al., 2016. Psychological attributes and work-integrated learning: An
international study. Higher education, skills and work-based learning.
Gachino, G.G. and Worku, G.B., 2019. Learning in higher education: towards knowledge, skills
and competency acquisition. International journal of educational management.
Gerken, M., Beausaert, S. and Segers, M., 2016. Working on professional development of
faculty staff in higher education: Investigating the relationship between social informal
learning activities and employability. Human Resource Development
International, 19(2), pp.135-151.
Hidayat, I.W., 2018. Keterampilan Belajar (Study Skills) Untuk Mahasiswa. Kencana.
Suleman, F., 2018. The employability skills of higher education graduates: insights into
conceptual frameworks and methodological options. Higher Education, 76(2), pp.263-
278.
Tran, L.H.N., 2018. Game of blames: Higher education stakeholders’ perceptions of causes of
Vietnamese graduates’ skills gap. International Journal of Educational
Development, 62(C), pp.302-312.
Williams, R., 2019. National higher education policy and the development of generic
skills. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 41(4), pp.404-415.