Business Study Skills for Higher Education: A Comprehensive Guide

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BUSINESS STUDY SKILLS FOR HIGHER EDUCATION
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Main reasons for studying a degree at university.......................................................................3
Core academic skills that can be developed along with their importance.................................4
Development of a study plan including short term coupled with long-term goals for
acquiring and developing the mentioned skills and knowledge.................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................7
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Introduction
A student needs to gain extensive skills to apply in practical situations. For achieving this,
higher education is the most preferred mode of approach for students. This study is aimed
towards identifying all the major reasons for a student to study a degree of their preference at
a preferred University. The scope of this study lies in developing a study plan for the
achievement of long and short-term goals.
Main reasons for studying a degree at university
A student can have multiple reasons for studying a degree at a University. However, there are
five reasons that attract students to study at a higher educational institute.
The first reason is for getting a good job to build a potential future. Education has the sole
purposes to help students gain knowledge, which can be applied in the near future to earn
money in a legal way (Moschetti and Hudley, 2016). Completing higher education increases
the chance of landing a good well paying job in this modern market that is highly
competitive.
Secondly, every individual has different fields of interest. Some students and even
professionals have a knack for gaining more knowledge. These reasons attract them to study
in a University for getting a degree in the field of study that aligns with their interests or
choice.
The third reason is for earning good money in a broad segment. This segment consists of
multiple areas like earning money through trade, research, conducting a business, teaching
students, and many more. For example, a college degree is very important in the UK for
potentially being employed in many organisations that provides additional advantages of
carrying out a research project under a specific University. In South American nations like
Colombia and Mexico, a degree from a reputed college can be applied to land the job of a
police because the illegal drug trade between nations is rampant in those nations (González-
Raimundí, 2016).
Many students want to get a general education or an appreciation of an idea. These students
go to colleges to get themselves a graduation degree in multiple fields of specialisation. Also,
ideas of any manner are valued more than getting a degree from a reputed college for gaining
the fundamentals of that idea is the societal norm that is prevalent in this era. The fact that
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formal education allows a person to analyse both the beneficial and detrimental aspects is
considered prejudicial before actually investing any form of resources in it. Though people
are able to differentiate this through formal education, it provides a way of acceptance into
the society or to incubators of business who would appreciate such ideas. This is the fourth
reason for students to get higher education (Bengtsson, 2016).
For the fifth reason, which is related to the segment of vocational training, a degree from a
college will allow a person to present his or her bio-data or CV to respected companies for
conducting vocational training. Without any kind of formal education, multinational
companies and organisations will turn down such applications.
Core academic skills that can be developed along with their importance
Formal education can help a person to develop his or her necessary academic skills. These
core skills can be divided into four parts.
The first part is developing technical knowledge. This can be featured by identifying the
formal styles of learning along with the aspect of academic writing. The importance of these
aspects in practical situations includes earning of money and creating unique goods and
services by the possible application of the technical skills gained from formal education.
Secondly, the core academic skills in effective communication and management of time can
be developed through formal education. This can be characterised by dividing a project into
multiple segments to efficiently completing such projects in time (Uccelli et al., 2015). Its
importance includes developing project management skills with various programmes like
Microsoft Project, Libra, and Microsoft Excel along with many more. Other core skills of
communication to be associated with this include the act of paraphrasing and taking notes in
the areas of skills of presentation and active listening.
Thirdly, the core academic skills like BAST can be improved in a manner that is refined
before entering into higher and formal education institutes. This is characterised by finding
the solution of basic problems that are mathematical in the fields of accountancy, algebra,
arithmetic, and geometry. A high score in the BAST test will view the candidate suitable for
postgraduate degrees of diploma or even a master’s degree in a desired subject.
Lastly, the core academic skills of personal efficacy and tenacity will be mentioned when
doing a degree course. Professional and academic skills combine to form the mentioned core
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skills (Bengtsson, 2016). It is important because its application lies mainly in the future with
less instances of application during a student’s life, where this core skill will allow a student
to create effective research projects for achieving required bachelor degrees along with the
development of a vocational report.
Development of a study plan including short term coupled with long-term goals for
acquiring and developing the mentioned skills and knowledge
Term Topic Time frame Objectives Focus days
Short Communication
skills
15 days To develop verbal and non-
verbal communication area
along with major development
in overall non self presentation
All the days
Analytical skills 30 days To improve personal analytical
skills in the form of logical
reasoning, mathematical
reasoning and others
Monday-
Wednesday
Long Time management
skills
45 days To improve efficient time
management skills with
reducing idle time
All the days
Analytical and
statistical skills
45 days To use statistical models and
software like SAS, SPSS in
conducting an analysis
Wednesday
to Saturday
Tenacity 50 days To improve extensive planning
for conducting a particular
project using a software like
MS project
All the days
Personal efficacy in
academic aspect
and professional
aspect
Continued
till the end of
academic
session
To improve extensive
efficiency relative to academic
writing and presentations
All the days
Development of
technical
knowledge
Continued
till the end of
academic
session
To improve relevant technical
skills in the event that
graduating degree is a technical
degree or developing
All the days
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theoretical knowledge in the
event that the degree is a non
technical degree
Table 1: Study plan
(Source: Developed by author)
Conclusion
After identifying all the reasons for getting a college degree, it can be concluded that the
ultimate reason for achieving the advantages of higher education would be to generate
income along with improving one’s social standing and respect. It can also be concluded that
core academic and technical skills would be inclusive of the relative fields of knowledge that
one can develop.
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References
Bengtsson, M., 2016. How to plan and perform a qualitative study using content
analysis. NursingPlus Open, 2, pp.8-14.
González-Raimundí, Z., 2016. University Educational Opportunities to Adults 50 Years of
Age or Older: Fundamental Reasons and Characteristics. International Journal of
Educational Excellence, 2(2), pp.65-76
Koirala, B., 2016. The Relationship Between Educational Attainment And Reasons For Labor
Force Participation Among Adults Aged 45 To 74 Years (Doctoral dissertation, Miami
University).
Moschetti, R.V. and Hudley, C., 2015. Social capital and academic motivation among first-
generation community college students. Community College Journal of Research and
Practice, 39(3), pp.235-251.
Uccelli, P., Barr, C.D., Dobbs, C.L., Galloway, E.P., Meneses, A. and Sanchez, E., 2015.
Core academic language skills: An expanded operational construct and a novel instrument to
chart school-relevant language proficiency in preadolescent and adolescent learners. Applied
Psycholinguistics, 36(5), pp.1077-1109.
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