University Portfolio: Academic Skills, Confidence, and Studying

This portfolio explores the development of academic skills and building confidence within a university setting. It highlights the importance of academic skills in professional development, referencing various university resources like the library and referencing portals. The portfolio showcases the student's experience with presentation skills, including overcoming stage fright through motivational videos and participation in debate competitions. It also emphasizes the impact of personality development sessions on building confidence and achieving personal and professional goals. The student reflects on how these skills and resources have contributed to their overall growth, ability to make informed decisions, and success in practical life. The portfolio references various books, journals, and online resources to support its claims and provide a comprehensive overview of the student's learning journey.

Academic Skills
and
Studying with
Confidence

INTRODUCTION
Academic skills are the set of skills which help in learning things in the university. These
are used for tackling different circumstances through which a person is developed professionally.
An individual gets to study numerous subjects for obtaining knowledge which assist in
enhancing the level of confidence (Rabiner, Godwin and Dodge, 2016). Furthermore, people
become efficient learners and these skills are required to get success in any career. This portfolio
is about services that are provided at university to gather information for supporting thee
students. This is followed by a section about the utilisations of these skills in real life activities.
These are the skills which should be possessed by every student which can help in developing
confidence as it is an element useful for lifetime.
MAIN BODY
Education institutions such as schools and universities are there to obtain professional
knowledge with a view to apply them in the career chosen by an individual. I have taken
admission in my university to become a learner at advanced level. This is the place where I was
able to learn so many things which I had no idea about. Also, there are different semesters in my
college where the subjects get changed. However, I and other students in my class have been
taught that information is a very useful resource which can help in building confidence (Fukuda,
Sakata and Pope, 2019).
My university is not just limited to books and what needs to be covered in the syllabus,
but also there are courses through which a student can grow professionally as well as personally.
I was a part of different curriculum activities which helped me discover so many hidden skills.
In addition to this, one of the main reasons for taking admission in this university is that it
provides number of services for obtaining information.
Library-
This is a location which comprise of variety of books of different authors that can be
read. My university has a library where almost every sort of books are available along with latest
edition. Moreover, magazines, journals and newspaper are also there which can be used for
becoming aware about what is going around in the world.
I have spent a lot of time in library in order to extract information relevant to the subjects
that I was studying. It is all about reading new articles, matters etc. which can be retained in the
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mind for a long time. I have realised that a lot of my concepts have become stronger by
achieving more clarity (Moran and Morner, 2017).
Referencing-
This refers to providing the source from where the information was obtained. There are
different styles of referencing which can be used. My university has a portal which can be
accessed to see how the referencing is done. Harvard referencing is the most popular kind which
is used in all types of files and matter. I was taught by my lecturer to do referencing so that
reader can know the source.
With the help this, I can now differentiate between reliable sources on the internet. There
is this site called google scholar which is for references only. It is a reliable site from where
different kinds of references can be obtained on variety of topics.
Fig. 1
Source: Google scholar, 2020
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Presentation skills-
Presentation skill refers to certain abilities with the application of which a person interact
with the audience. The main purpose of this skill is to deliver the message to the people in order
to involve in the presentation. My university conducts debate competition where we have to
participate. I was also a part of this competition where I selected one of the topics from the
course I was pursuing. I made a presentation which was shown to some 500 students in my
college (Wrzus and Roberts, 2017).
I must say that, interacting with the audience was the most difficult task when I began to
explain my presentation. I was nervous and scared to the core as I have stage fear which made
me conscious. Thus, to overcome this issue and gain confidence, me and my classmates were
made to watch lots of motivational videos online. There is this famous motivational speaker who
has his own channel where motivational speeches are given to relax the mind. The name of that
person is Tony Robbins who is the coach of leadership and give messages on building self-
confidence.
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Fig. 2
Source: Self-confidence by Tony Robbins, 2020
This video really helped all of us who watched it. We were all motivated and did our best
to control the anxiety building inside us. Furthermore, I realised that everything is in our hand
and if we want, we can develop great level of confidence. I still watch some of his videos to keep
myself motivated. The result of watching this video was that I stood second in the competition. I
was able to tackle my fear of stage and delivered the message very clear and loud.
Personality development session
Personality is defined as the characteristics, attitudes, opinions, behaviour etc. which are
there in a person. This factor makes every individual different and unique from each other. It is
very important that every individual has their own personality without imitating others. The
university in which I was studying, conducted personality development sessions. In those
classes, we were taught about the being bold and confident in every activity we are doing or
likely to do.
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I felt very positive during these sessions as they were meant to make us more confident. I
developed my own way of doing things which really helped in landing a position at a repute
company for the job position desired by me. This is something which is beyond the regular
studies and beneficial for setting an example (Van Emden and Becker, 2016).
CONCLUSION
I have become confident with my academic skills due to which I have developed new
skills and talent that can help me gain experience in practical life. There are some strong skills
such as communication, presentation which have been made more confident. I can now make my
own judgement by concentrating on the details of every matter. Also, I can take good decisions
which has been developed in personality development sessions. Furthermore, other services such
as library, referencing etc. which have made be use these information in the right manner.
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REFERENCES
Books & Journals:
Rabiner, D.L., Godwin, J. and Dodge, K.A., 2016. Predicting academic achievement and
attainment: The contribution of early academic skills, attention difficulties, and social
competence. School Psychology Review. 45(2). pp.250-267.
Fukuda, S.T., Sakata, H. and Pope, C.J., 2019. Developing self-coaching skills in university EFL
classrooms to encourage out-of-class study time. Innovation in Language Learning and
Teaching. 13(2). pp.118-132.
Moran, B.B. and Morner, C.J., 2017. Library and information center management. ABC-CLIO.
Van Emden, J. and Becker, L., 2016. Presentation skills for students. Macmillan International
Higher Education.
Wrzus, C. and Roberts, B.W., 2017. Processes of personality development in adulthood: The
TESSERA framework. Personality and Social Psychology Review. 21(3). pp.253-277.
Online:
Self-confidence by Tony Robbins. 2020. [Online]. Available through
:<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezSkpyuhymk>.
Google scholar. 2020. [Online]. Available through :<https://scholar.google.com/scholar?
as_ylo=2016&q=academic+skills&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5>.
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