Introduction to Academic Skills: Personal & Professional Growth

This assignment, focused on academic skills, delves into personal and professional development. It begins with a self-assessment of personal, academic, and English language skills, leading to the creation of short-term and long-term improvement plans. The assignment then explores note-taking, paraphrasing, and summarizing techniques based on learning materials. A significant portion involves an academic research project utilizing both primary and secondary research methods, including questionnaires and literature review. The student reflects on their academic progress, refining their personal development plan and action plan while setting future targets. The research focuses on communication, leadership, interpersonal skills, and the impact of COVID-19. The assignment provides a detailed overview of the student's learning journey, skill development, and research methodologies, highlighting the importance of continuous improvement for achieving future career goals.

INTRODUCTION TO
ACADEMIC SKILLS

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
Reflect your learnings where you need to access strengths and weakness of your personal
skills, academic skills and your academic English language skills. Make short term and long
term plan for improving these skills and develop a personal development plan.........................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................6
Prepare notes from the learnings of your reading material, listening and skills of paraphrasing
and summarizing..........................................................................................................................6
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................8
Carry out academic research project based on your learnings from primary secondary research
methods........................................................................................................................................8
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................11
Reflect the progress of your academic learnings by preparing personal development plan and
action plan and provide feedback including need to set future targets......................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Academic skills including personal skills, academic English skills play vital role for
accomplish future career goals. Personal skills involve communication, leadership, interpersonal,
decision making skills and other which improve my learnings and knowledge and helps to get
future employability. These skills are required for accomplishing both professional and career
growth. Academic skills help to acquire knowledge about the approaches and technique used by
leaders and manager different business events. It helps to develop the personal skill which are
needed to improve competencies require take important decisions for future role in employment.
This report covers strengths and weakness of personal and academic skills and plan to improve
them, preparing notes from the university learnings, research project of learnings based on
primary and secondary research, reflect the progress of academic learnings (Brackett and et.al.,
2019).
TASK 1
Reflect your learnings where you need to access strengths and weakness of your personal skills,
academic skills and your academic English language skills. Make short term and long term plan
for improving these skills and develop a personal development plan
Skills Strengths Weaknesses
Personal skills:
From the academic work at
my university it has greatly
helped me to improve my
personal skills. Personal skills
include communication skills,
leadership skills, problem
solving and time
management.
As I want to be a leader as a
future career goals through
academic learnings it will
helps me improve my skills
and knowledge which helps
me to achieve my future
career goals (Cetin, 2015).
Applying these skills in my
daily life become difficult for
me, as I have to learn more
new languages in order I
interact with new people and
maintain my learnings.
Academic skills: Learnings from my university Writing each and every notes,

Learnings from my university
have helped me to develop
new ways of learning which
involves preparing notes,
research, paraphrasing and
summarising. These
techniques have helped me to
remember all the points of
learnings.
has helped me to acquire
knowledge about academic
skills, I have prepared notes
based on my learning which
makes easier for me to just
slip pages revise learnings.
paraphrasing, research and
summarising them of my
acquired learnings takes huge
time, which further breaks my
time management schedule
for doing other curricular
things.
English language skills Learning English academics
skills helps to improve my
communication skills with
people. It has helped me to
remove my language barrier
for interacting and
communicating with people
in my workplace.
Focusing too much for on
English academic skills
consumes time and efforts
which further demotivates me
to focus on other subjects.
Targets:
In order to have command over my personal, academics and English skills, I have to set targets
in order to improve my skills. During the learning course from my university, I have to set short
term targets in order to brings consistency and promote regular learning. Short term target
includes setting short time schedules for measuring the results of my learnings. Whereas long
term target includes setting time schedules of years so that I am able to nurture my skills and use
it in my further professional growth (Cimermanová, 2018).
Short term target: In order to measure the end results of the learnings I have to set target for 2
months by completely focusing on improving my communication, leadership and other

interpersonal skills by reading notes I prepared and practicing these learnings in my daily routine
life (Duta, Panisoara and Panisoara, 2015).
Long term target: I have to improve my learning by settling long time period for 2 years, in this
2 years I will focus on improving my skills to my utmost knowledge in order to measure this
effectiveness of these skills. After 2 years I want to be a leader in a multinational organisation.
To measure my learnings, I will interact and communicate with employees and formulate
important organisational decision which will help to analyse the effectiveness of my learnings to
that how far the learning from my university has helped me in my career growth.
Personal development plan:
It is defined by making a written statement about how an individual is going to set target to
acquire future goals and different techniques of improving the current skills and knowledge.
Skills Importance of
these skills
How are you
going to
improve the
skills
Resources
required
Data of
accomplishment
Leadership skills Leadership skills
are required for
influencing the
employees in a
workplace
towards same
direction to
accomplish
organisational
objectives
(Entwistle, 2018).
I am going to
attend
workshops
and seminar
and use
internet
platforms to
determine
that how
different
leader have
used
leadership
approaches
for
Workshops,
seminars
1 month

developing
their internal
management.
Decision making
skills
Decision making
abilities are
important to take
crucial decision in
different business
events.
I am going to
read books
and take
references
from internet
for analysing
that how
different
leaders have
taken
decisions in
different
business
challenges.
Books,
internet,
interviews
2 weeks
English academic
skills
English academic
skills are required
to bridge the gap
of language
barrier and
promote smooth
flow of
information.
For
improving
my English
academic
skills I am
going to read
dictionaries
and books to
improve my
language.
Dictionary,
Book
3 weeks

TASK 2
Prepare notes from the learnings of your reading material, listening and skills of paraphrasing
and summarizing
Learning I took from my university has helped me listening, reading, paraphrasing and
summarisation.
Listening: Due to COVID-19 pandemic, our university classes were online due to global
lockdown, students were not able to address physical classes and classes were taken through
internet platforms. It helped me to be a good listener (Gilavand, Gilavand and Gilavand, 2016).
Things that I noted down:
Listening skills helps to improve the relationship of one individual with another as it helps to
address the concerns and issues of one another. For being a good leader I have first gave to be
good listener addressing the concerns of employees in the workplace, listening skills will help
me to rightly analyse the current business event especially in the times of COVID-19 scenario
where no one can go out and physically see the actual event, so good listening skills via virtual
platforms helps to take notes of the message of the other person (Grabe and Zhang, 2016).
Listening skills reduces the risk of misinterpreting the message of the other person, and
correctively take decision which best address the needs of the individuals.
Reading: Reading skills helps to note down all the points which I have learnt from the academic
course of the university. Things which I noted down:
Reading skills helps to analyse the situation and formulate proper decisions, it is crucial for me
to be a leader I have to by myself read and analyse scenarios in order to implement proper
decisions. Reading skills helps to enhance my knowledge in different subjects. Global lockdown
due to COVID-19 has helped me to enhance me reading skills which has helped me to gain
knowledge about different subjects like how communication works in both personal and
professional lives, how leaders can influence individuals in the workplace and other academics
learnings which have improved my skills and competencies.
Paraphrasing: Paraphrasing helps understand things what I have learnt from the learnings and
rephrasing it in my own words. With the use of paraphrasing I am able to rephrased business
scenarios in my own words. Paraphrasing helps to write things in my own words rather than just
reading and learning out what is just taught. Through paraphrasing I can apply my own

ideologies and conclusions of what I learn. With the help of paraphrasing I am able to analyse
different situations and give my own conclusion regarding every situation. It helps me in my
current working organisation for analysing different scenarios and properly work and focus on
performing different task efficiently. For me to a leader as a future career goal, paraphrasing will
help me to analyse the concerns and the grey areas of my business and develop right strategic
planning and decisions (Gull and Shehzad, 2015).
Summarised information: Summarised information is like an abstract which helps me to keep
me to analyse whatever I learnt, it is like a short summary which helps me to understand and
remember everything I learnt that than reading everything again. Things which I summarised
from my learning are:
Communication skills are crucial for interacting with people and conveying them the message
for others, right communication will helps to reduce ambiguity and misinterpretation of the
message especially in times of COVID-19, where people are not able to visit everyone physically
so the right medium of communication via internet platforms other platforms helps to deliver the
right message to individuals is important, effective communication is vital in workplaces to
deliver the organisational objectives to the employees (Havnes and Prøitz, 2016).
Leadership skills defines the power and behaviour of a leader that how he/she influences other
people in a workplace towards a same direction. Leadership skills are important to encourage
employees to work effectively. In the times of COVID-19, where positive motivation is must as
employee might be sufferings through physically, mental and other financial strain in both
personal and professional lives. Thus, leader should render financial and non-financial incentives
to motivate the employees and keeps the consistency of business growth.
Other skills I acquired about English academic skills, interpersonal skills, decision making,
social skills and academic skills which involves research, paraphrasing, summarising in order to
improve and develop my understandings on my academic learnings. I keep summarised
information of my online lectures to make sure I learn each and every point that is been taught
(Jensen, 2015).

TASK 3
Carry out academic research project based on your learnings from primary secondary research
methods
Research plan:
This research covers techniques that have improved my learnings and skills based on
communication, leadership, interpersonal and decision making abilities which are crucial for me
to achieve my future career growth. This research also covers that how COVID-19 has impacted
the lives of students in both positive and negative way.
Primary research:
(Academic learnings. 2021) For developing my knowledge and understandings it is important for
me to take information from relevant sources, due to COVID-19, I could not physically visit to
collect primary resources so I made the list of some good leaders and manager of different
organisation, then as a part of my research work I made a question regarding the information I
want to get.
Questionnaire:
1. What is the communication channel followed in the organisation?
2. What are the leadership approaches used in the workplace?
3. What are the motivational tools applied to motivate the employees?
4. What are the strategic planning and the main motive of the functioning of organisation?
5. How do you finance business activities, including the sources and allocation of funds?
6. How do you control and monitor the functions of business? What steps do you take in
case of deviations in any business activity?
7. Lastly, and the most important, in the COVID-19 scenarios how do function and manage
the business activities?
I asked these question via internet platforms and tele calling. Primary research helped me to
develop my actual and practical knowledge and different skills that I acquired from my college.
Secondary research:
Secondary research includes taking references from books, magazines, newspaper and internet.
Conducting secondary research has helped me to enhance my knowledge and understanding
based on my learnings. Gathering information from secondary learnings has help learn that how
different skills that how communication works in different organisational context, definitions and

approaches of leadership, decision makings abilities, interpersonal skills to promote employee
engagement skills. Thus, secondary research has developed my theoretical knowledge learnings
(Jez and Wassmer, 2015).
First draft
INTRODUCTION
This report covers the importance of developing my core skills like communication,
decision making, leadership which will helps me in my future career growth to get
employability.
MAIN BODY
Academic learnings from college are important in order to accomplish future career
goals. As I have to be a good leader in a multinational organisation, thus academic learnings are
important for me develop my soft skills for acquiring my career goals.
Final draft
INTRODUCTION
This report covers different skills and competencies that are required in the workplace.
This report cover how has improved my skills using different skills. Though COVID-19 has
impacted our lives and many businesses in both positive and negative ways but the successful
business is that which finds solution to every business challenges (Kizkapan and Bektas, 2017).
MAIN BODY
The learnings that I addressed from my college academic learnings including the
importance of communication, leadership skills, interpersonal skills which are crucial for me for
in my future employability. The importance of the academic skills includes:
(Personal skills. 2021) Communication is the key skill that plays an important role in delivering
the organisational objectives to the employees.Leadership is required for influencing and
motivating the employees so that they are able to work in a given direction. (Academic skills.
2020)Interpersonal skills are required for developing and understanding the views and opinions
of the employees in the workplace so that they feel valued in the organisation. Decision making
abilities are required for taking decision at different business challenges with the current scenario
of COVID-19, a situation of global emergency where functionalities of business are changing.
Many businesses have asked their employees to work from home and functions all business

activities from home using the latest technological software. Thus, leaders need to take important
decisions in different business situation regarding internal management, changes that needs to be
taken place to expand business, adapt to different to current market demand and so on.
English academic skills: Learning English academic skills is important to develop no language
bar while communicating to other people, thus an individual should have a command over
language to effective communicating to all individuals.
CONCLUSION
Thus in a nutshell, developing academic skills plays an important role in delivering the
right message to the other person. Be it leadership skills, communication, or the personal skills it
helps to develop and manage the internal and external business management and accomplish
personal and professional growth.
Feedback
My tutor gave me good feedback of putting efforts of developing the complete knowledge upon
my research work. The tutor also told me to work start taking internship in an organisation so
that I am able to acquire practical knowledge about my learnings from college (Kuhfield and
Tarasawa, 2020).
Review of the research
By research work about the academic learnings from my college has helped me to develop my
core learnings. As I want to become a leader in a multinational organisation developing my soft
skills will benefit me to be a good leader influencing employees in an organisation towards
accomplishment of organisation goals. Moreover, good communication and other personal skills
will help me to accomplish my future career goals. Taking reference from primary and secondary
sources has helped me to enhance my strong knowledge in how these skills really works in
different organisational context (Light and Calkins, 2015).
TASK 4
Reflect the progress of your academic learnings by preparing personal development plan and
action plan and provide feedback including need to set future targets
Finding on my personal development plan:
Skills Findings

Leadership skills By the end of 1month, I am able to acquire theoretical knowledge
on my leadership skills but I also need to develop my practical
learnings on different leadership styles and approaches for that I
need to interact with different business leaders.
Decision making skills By the end of 2 weeks, I am able to improve my decision making
skills and I also need to read books in order to improve my
decision making abilities (McCormick and et.al., 2015).
Academic English skills By the end of 3 weeks, I am able to have command in English,
but in order to speak it confidently I need to interact with people
to have fluent speaking.
Action plan:
Skills Actual
performance
Standard
performance
How to achieve
the standard
target
Time duration
Leadership
skills
7 9 In order
accomplish
leadership skills I
need to focus on
learnings out of
my research
project by
gathering
information based
on primary and
secondary sources
(Sidelinger and
et.al., 2015).
2 month
Decision
making skills
6 9 In order to
enhance my
3 momths

practical decision
making
knowledge I have
to take internship
projects in any
organisation
which will helps
to analyse
business events
and the important
decision that
needs to take
which best suits
the business
environment.
Academic
English skills
7 9 In order to
improve my
academic English
skills, I need to
take regular
classes online
classes of my
college and read
books and
dictionaries’ to
improve my
English
vocabularies.
1 month
Discussion with my colleague including the progress and learnings on my academic work.

Colleague: How have you managed to acquire knowledge on academic learnings?
As I want to a leader in a global organisation as a career goal, I have researched all the skills that
is required for leader to manage overall objective of the business. Academic learnings have
helped me acquire knowledge about personal skills required for the role of leader. After thorough
research from primary and secondary sources and knowledge from academic learnings of college
it has helped me to build and develop my competent skills (Smallhorn, 2017). Moreover, as a
part of my research project I have made analysis of personal skills required for different
organisational context. Apart from that I have made plan to improve my skills and competencies
to accomplish future career goals. By the end, of this project I am able to improve my knowledge
on personal and academic skills for future employability.
CONCLUSION
Thus, academic learnings from the college helps to gain knowledge about different
personal and academic skills required for future employability. Academic skills are important to
develop knowledge and competencies required to manage and function business. These skills
play a crucial role for a leader to manage and control the internal workforce and take important
decision to external and internal business challenges. Thus, acquiring these skills are required to
gaining competencies and accomplish career goals.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Brackett, M. A. and et.al., 2019. RULER: A theory-driven, systemic approach to social,
emotional, and academic learning. Educational Psychologist. 54(3). pp.144-161.
Cetin, B., 2015. Academic motivation and self-regulated learning in predicting academic
achievement in college. Journal of International Education Research. 11(2). pp.95-106.
Cimermanová, I., 2018. The Effect of Learning Styles on Academic Achievement in Different
Forms of Teaching. International Journal of Instruction. 11(3). pp.219-232.
Duta, N., Panisoara, G. and Panisoara, I.O., 2015. The Effective Communication in Teaching.
Diagnostic study regarding the academic learning motivation to students. Procedia-
Social and Behavioral Sciences. 186. pp.1007-1012.
Entwistle, N., 2018. Student learning and academic understanding: a research perspective with
implications for teaching.
Gilavand, A., Gilavand, M. and Gilavand, S., 2016. Investigating the impact of lighting
educational spaces on learning and academic achievement of elementary
students. International Journal of Pediatrics. 4(5). pp.1819-1828.
Grabe, W. and Zhang, C., 2016. Reading-writing relationships in first and second language
academic literacy development. Language Teaching. 49(3). p.339.
Gull, F. and Shehzad, S., 2015. Effects of cooperative learning on students' academic
achievement. Journal of Education and Learning. 9(3). pp.246-255.
Havnes, A. and Prøitz, T. S., 2016. Why use learning outcomes in higher education? Exploring
the grounds for academic resistance and reclaiming the value of unexpected
learning. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability. 28(3). pp.205-223.
Jensen, M., 2015. Personality Traits, Learning and Academic Achievements. Journal of
Education and Learning. 4(4) pp.91-118.
Jez, S. J. and Wassmer, R. W., 2015. The impact of learning time on academic
achievement. Education and Urban Society. 47(3). pp.284-306.
Kizkapan, O. and Bektas, O., 2017. The Effect of Project Based Learning on Seventh Grade
Students' Academic Achievement. International Journal of Instruction. 10(1). pp.37-54.
Kuhfield, M. and Tarasawa, B., 2020. The COVID-19 Slide: What Summer Learning Loss Can
Tell Us about the Potential Impact of School Closures on Student Academic
Achievement. Brief. NWEA.
Light, G. and Calkins, S., 2015. The experience of academic learning: uneven conceptions of
learning across research and teaching. Higher Education. 69(3). pp.345-359.
McCormick, M. P. and et.al., 2015. Social-emotional learning and academic achievement: using
causal methods to explore classroom-level mechanisms. Aera Open. 1(3).
p.2332858415603959.

Sidelinger, R. J. and et.al., 2015. Academic and social integration in the basic communication
course: Predictors of students' out-of-class communication and academic
learning. Communication Studies. 66(1). pp.63-84.
Smallhorn, M., 2017. The flipped classroom: A learning model to increase student engagement
not academic achievement. Student Success. 8(2). pp.43-53.
ONLINE REFERENCES:
Academic learnings. 2021 [ Online Available Through;< https://www.rasmussen.edu/student-
experience/college-life/ten-life-lessons-you-learn-in-college/>]
Personal skills. 2021 [Online Available Through;< https://www.zippia.com/advice/personal-
skills/>]
Academic skills. 2020 [Online Available Through;< https://www.english.com/blog/academic-
skills-for-higher-education/>]