Reflective Essay: My Academic Journey, Skills, and Future Goals

This reflective essay explores the author's academic journey, focusing on skill development and the challenges encountered during the first six weeks of a bachelor's degree program. The essay details the acquisition of essential skills such as referencing, reflective writing, SWOT analysis, and group presentation techniques. It addresses challenges like cultural differences and linguistic issues, highlighting strategies for overcoming them. The main body discusses how these skills contribute to career development and academic success, including data interpretation and the importance of communication. The essay concludes with reflections on facing future challenges in higher education, emphasizing the role of active learning and engagement in studies. References to academic sources support the discussion.

CW1:Reflective Essay

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
How and why..........................................................................................................................1
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................2
Challenges faced by me as a learner.......................................................................................2
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................2
The way under which studies have been taken......................................................................2
Reflection on how to approach for facing future challenges with expectation of university
course......................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Presuming a bachelor degree provide benefits to an individual to develop academic and
professional skills (Succi, 2019). It prepared learners for achievement of high success at
university, with increase in knowledge and creativity. The present assignment entails what a
learner achieves during bachelor degree and how it helps in facing future challenges as well as
expectation of a universe course.
TASK 1
How and why
Academic courses aid a learner to develop study and employability skills, such as problem
solving, communications, creative and critical thinking, etc. (Saleh, 2019). For preparing for
success, educators more focus on self-development and enhancement of responsibilities in
learners. During first to sixth weeks, as a learner I have gained opportunities to understand some
interesting concepts. It includes knowledge about different references style, way to structure a
work, reflective writing and more. For career development, a number of topic has been taught
during academics to me which includes group presentation, reflection, SWOT analysis and more.
Group presentation can be defined as a task where a person needs to be worked with others
then present the collected information in front of audience. Therefore, to engage audience with
presentation, a person must have interactive and good speaking skills. While referencing method
applies when a student takes data from any external source then to make authenticity, it is
essential for references them. It includes detailed information of sources with in-text citation.
Another main topic is reflection, which is used to reflect what a person achieved or make
contribution for completing a task. Using this skill, an individual can describe the entire journey
that has faced before and during the project. Through this concept, learners can encourage to
reveal about past experience and analyse what they have done well and where mistakes have
been made. Through this process, they can make improvement in their own capabilities before
working on another assignment. Swot analysis is used for measuring own capabilities and
weaknesses that is essential for evaluating how much a person is able to complete a task. Along
with this, opportunities as well as barriers can also identified by this process. This technique
assists a learner during academics to work more on their weaknesses like learning skills,
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communication and other aspects, which are essential for completion of a project more
efficiently and receive higher grades as well.
TASK 2
Challenges faced by me as a learner
During academic period, the thing which has come as a barrier in front of me was cultural
difference, because I was belong to another country. Therefore, linguistic issues have affected
my studies in understanding what teacher has taught. So, under this situation, through
cooperation of my seniors, fellow-mates and teachers, I have overcome from this challenge and
improve my linguistic issues. It has helped me to improve my learning skills and getting
involvement in studies more effectively.
MAIN BODY
The way under which studies have been taken
. During academics, a number of topics I have learnt that helps in developing various skills
which are essential for career development. For example - By grabbing knowledge about group
presentation skill, a learner can become able to present their assignment either in group or on
individual basis more effectively. This concept encourages me to work on communication and
interactive skills more, so that cooperation of each member can be gained. Under referencing
style, it has been learnt that it is used in an assignment, when ideas and perceptions of someone
else is taken (Grebenkina and et. al., 2019). This would allow a person to use such sources of
information, so that ethics can be maintained. Having this knowledge, research skills of a learner
can be enhanced, therefore, through this process, I can better understand how to keep ethnicity of
assignment by including authors' name whose data is taken for completion. Furthermore,
Harvard referencing style also been taught in two main segments, first one how to citation in a
proper format and where to put reference list in assignment. Hereby, tutors has shown a sample
assignment to show some basic elements of Harvard style of referencing, that reflects an
example of good quality of academic writing (Blakeman and Taylor, 2019). This would help me
in preparing future projects with high efficiencies. Learning about a group presentation is
second topic that I have learned during academic course, where knowledge about some essential
skills like how to make interaction, communicate in both professional and friendly manner to
develop trust with peers and colleagues, presenting in front of all etc. These concepts help in
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developing inter-personal skills, team-building abilities and how to cooperate others in
completion of a task (Woods, 2019). For this purpose, a number of activities has been organised
within classrooms, that gives opportunity to learners to overcome from those areas where they
feel weak. Along with this, learning about group discussion also aid in reducing knowledge gap
between learners, so that they can work in more collaborative manner. Under group presentation,
one of the activity includes data interpretation, where a financial data has given to me and other
learners, then teacher has asked to interpret the same. Interpretation considers as a process of
analysing and making sense of data, which has been collected as well as organised mostly in
numerical manner. In this regard, development of such skill aid a person to interpret data from
surroundings ones. For example – listening a news or any negative rumour about a product, data
interpretation skill aid a person to personally analyse such thing happen (Woods, 2019). They do
not influence directly about any misconception and identify reasons before making any
judgement.
Furthermore, another main concept is reflective writing, where a person who either
works on an assignment in individual or team work, demonstrates own experience (Grebenkina
and et. al., 2019). Having this experience, I have acknowledged with how to express own
feelings, difficulties and what have been learnt by working on a project. Through this process,
own weaknesses and strengths can be evaluated and further plan can be made to improve the
same. Thus, when I was given a chance to work on a project especially in a group, then it helps
me to understand the importance of working in team, how to make collaboration with others and
more (Blakeman and Taylor, 2019). Hereby, the main concept that I have understood is
communication, which is most essential to influence others towards specific achievement of
purpose and goal.
Reflection on how to approach for facing future challenges with expectation of university course
When a learner don't know the way to get success in academic, including the university's
expectation then, under such condition they become anxious (Saleh, 2019). This will suffer their
grades due to negative impact of anxiety and stress. So, teaching modules provided in classrooms
aid learners to become familiar with expectation and future challenges of university course. In
this regard, I have also got opportunity to learn those skills that are essential for achievement of
academic success (Succi, 2019). It entails me to understand the importance of active learning
activities that helps me in understanding some basic skills like good communication, project
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making, reflective and presentation. All these approaches help me to face future challenges of
higher studies and promotes for more engagement with studies. Furthermore, these learning
abilities also aid me improve my performance during academics that will lead to great success,
with high grades.
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from this assignment that modules and learning programs which
are provided to students during academics, helps in grabbing essential skills. This would help
learners to get maximum benefit and become more familiar with studies and expectation of
universities. Through this process, they can contribute more efforts to get higher grades in
academics and prepare themselves to face future challenges, by actively engagement in studies.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Blakeman, R., & Taylor, M. (2019). Team Creative Brief: Creative and Account Teams Speak
Out on Best Practices. Journal of Advertising Education. 23(1). pp.39-52.
Grebenkina, L. К., & et. al. (2019). Interaction of subjects of pedagogical activity in technical
university. International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology. 10(1). p.1241.
Saleh, H. (2019). Employer Impression as a Moderator Relationship for Employer Satisfaction
with Engineering Graduate Skill at Malaysia Manufacturing Industry. International
Journal of Human and Technology Interaction. 3(1). pp.83-86.
Succi, C. (2019). Are you ready to find a job? Ranking of a list of soft skills to enhance
graduates' employability. International Journal of Human Resources Development and
Management. 19(3). pp.281-297.
Woods, P. (2019). Creative teachers in primary schools. Routledge.
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