Graduate Attributes, Skills, and Professional Development Report

This report examines key graduate attributes essential for final-year students, focusing on communication and problem-solving skills. It highlights the significance of these attributes in enhancing knowledge and career prospects. The report details practical activities students can undertake to improve their communication skills, such as using technology, reinforcing active listening through seminars, and engaging in reflective learning through group discussions. Furthermore, it explores strategies for developing problem-solving skills, including case studies, research, critical thinking exercises, and problem-solving games. The report emphasizes the importance of these attributes for professional development, offering valuable insights for students seeking to enhance their skills and prepare for future careers. The report concludes by summarizing the importance of graduate attributes and activities that help in improving them.

Project Management
and
Professional Development

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSIONS..............................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Graduate attributes are the high level qualities and skills which a students need to
develop within themselves by engaging interacting with other students and engaging in learning
activities in universities. Present report will help the students to understand three graduate
attributes and the activities performed that help in improving that skills.
MAIN BODY
Graduate attributes have the potential to enhance and outshines the knowledge in which
they were originally acquired (Oliver and Jorre de St Jorre, 2018). The three main graduate
attributes that are important for final year students are:
Communication:
It is one of the most important skills for every students whether in final or doing masters.
Changing career and increasing competition in the colleges and workplace makes it important for
students to increase and improve their communication skills. A students can well develop their
communication skills when they listen, understand and convey their ideas and issues in an
appropriate way (Hoosain and Sinha, 2018). There are certain activities which can help the
students increasing their communication attributes and skills. The activities that a students can
done to improve their communication are:
 Use technology: technology can be a great source from which a students can improve his
communication skills. Students can listen to different audiobooks to learn how speakers
pronounces the words or phrases. The students can in-act and done self assessment for
speaking and self- assessment to increase their communication skills.
 Reinforce active listening: communication is not just about speaking, its also about active
listening. Students can attend seminars and conference to listen the session and reflect on
to the content (Bridgstock, 2012). Active listening also means listening to understand
rather than replying. Students can reinforce good listening power by asking and
clarifying the questions by themselves.
 Offer reflective learning opportunities: working on a short group discussion can
encourage the students to work on their communication skills. Students can practise their

oral performance by speaking in short group. It can help in resolving their fear of
communicating in front of everyone.
Problem solving skills:
Educating the students about the problem solving skills can be done through various
activities by students. The ability to analyse a problem and get all the facts regarding the
problems and preparing a workable solution is one of the most student that a high level students
should have (Hager and Holland, 2012). There are many activities through which a student can
enhance its problem solving skills.
 Case-study and researches: solving case study and researches can increase the problem
solving power of students. It helps them to analyse various situation and assist to finf a
solution from their own point of view.
 Foster critical thinking: a task based method that will help in increasing the problem
solving skills is through critical thinking exercise. It can be done verbally or through
written assignments that can help students to think critical in solving the questions by
thinking creatively.
 Active games: playing problem-solving or puzzles games can help in boosting the brain
and thinking capability to solve a problem. A student can apply it in realistic strategic
thinking solution.
CONCLUSIONS
By summing up the above report, it can be analysed that graduate attributes are
important for high level students to develop the graduate attributes in themselves. The above
report concluded the attributes and the activities that helps in improving that.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bridgstock, R., 2012. The graduate attributes we’ve overlooked: Enhancing graduate
employability through career management skills. Higher Education Research &
Development. 28(1). pp.31-44.
Hager, P. and Holland, S. eds., 2012. Graduate attributes, learning and employability (Vol. 6).
Springer Science & Business Media.
Hoosain, M. S. and Sinha, S., 2018. Integrating ‘Engineering Projects in Community
Service’into engineering curricula to develop graduate attributes. Scholarship of Teaching
and Learning in theSouth. 2(1). pp.60-75.
Normand, C. and Anderson, L. eds., 2017. Graduate attributes in higher education:
Attitudes on attributes from across the disciplines. Taylor & Francis.
Oliver, B. and Jorre de St Jorre, T., 2018. Graduate attributes for 2020 and beyond:
recommendations for Australian higher education providers. Higher Education Research &
Development. 37(4). pp.821-836.