MG408: Reflective Report on Skills Developed During Graduate Challenge

This report is a reflective account of a student's participation in the Graduate Challenge, focusing on the development of key skills through various activities such as the Apprentice challenge, Presentation challenge, and T-shirt challenge. It details the skills acquired, including communication, teamwork, time management, and business acumen, and reflects on how these skills were demonstrated and improved during the challenges. The report also includes an action plan for further skill development over three years at university, utilizing strategies and Tuckman's theory on teamwork. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of facing challenges for enhancing problem-solving abilities and securing career prospects, highlighting the value of understanding situations, preparing solutions, and gaining the trust of teammates.

The Graduate
Challenge

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
TASK...............................................................................................................................................3
Certain challenges and reflection of the skills that have been demonstrated during the process
.....................................................................................................................................................3
An action plan how I will develop these skills over three years at university............................5
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Graduate challenge refers to those challenges which is facilitate by the management of
institute to the students for developing their internal skills effectively. It includes various skills
such as communication or emotional intelligence, teamwork, time management, presentation and
meeting skills. This report is prepared on the basis of secondary data which includes journals,
newspapers and magazines. The main motive of analysing graduate challenge is to systematic
understanding of other institutes departmental functions (Scriven and Strampel, 2020). This
report is prepared on the basis of various challenges which are facing by the students at the time
of doing graduation in any institute. It includes apprentice, presentation and T shirt challenge and
these challenges are very helpful for developing their skills effectively.
TASK
Certain challenges and reflection of the skills that have been demonstrated during the process
Apprentice challenge refers to those elements which are used by students for assist the
institute in their work (Bringle, Hahn and Hatcher, 2019). It includes innovative thinking,
keeping good coordination with others, controlling the budget and so on. The main motive of this
challenge by institute is to provide effective training to them (Cook, 2018). It leads to increasing
their confidence level for doing any type of job easily.
Various skills -
 Communication skills – With the help of doing various types of projects I understand
that effective coordination between the staff are essential. It leads to enhance the
productivity of the teammates for complete the task in time. With help of proper
coordination my team mates do the work in organized manner which is highly essential
which leads to decrease the misunderstanding between candidates regarding their work.
 Teamwork – In teamwork I understand that when we are doing the task as a team
workload are divided easily which leads to decrease the stress on staff members.
Dividation of work is necessary for manage the multiple tasks systematically. Due to
separation of work positive work environment are maintained between candidates in any
institute and organisation for a long time.
 Time management and meeting skills – In this element I understand that doing or
completing the task according to time is very essential. It leads to maintain the stability of

candidates work life balance in long time. For maintaining flexibility in time or work I
attend the meeting with my team members and in this meeting I also analyse my
problems. And this meeting is highly helpful for me for getting proper solution regarding
the time management.
 Business skills – At the time of doing task I realize that for doing any job or business
successfully combination of previously mentioned skills are essential. With the help of
using these skills good relationships are maintained with others for long duration. When I
used combined skills my difficult task or challenges are easily solved in time.
Presentation challenge basically refers to in which way candidate present their topic to
the audience effectively (James, and Gregory, 2021). With the help of presentation candidate
communication skills in the sense of speaking are highly improved (Papageorgiou, Wiberg, and
Persson, 2021). After the development of speaking the particular candidate easily present their
view points and new ideas in front of management without any hesitation. Various skills -
 Communication skills – With help of preparing various presentations I realized that
effective fluency in speaking is very essential for clearing audience drought easily. It also
increased interaction between audience and candidate for a long time. Interaction is a
highly essential part in communication for achieving new knowledge from every where.
 Teamwork – In team work single topic are handled by two or more students for
presenting their work in front of the audience. When the students present their work as a
team then the confidence level are also increased. In team work the trust are also highly
increased between them, it means that when one student present their part then the other
candidate fulfil their role as a alternative.
 Time management and meeting skills – In presentation proper timing is very important
is very important to maintain coordination at the time of presenting topics. Because
effective time management helped to decrease the common mistakes such as grammatical
errors etc. Effective time management also helped to develop the quality speech in long
run.
 Business skills – In context to business skills I present my topic professionally in front of
the audience. Professional way is very important to attract the customers in positive
manner. In professional method topic delivered to customers in short and sweet manner
which is mostly liked by them.

T shirt challenge refers to create challenge in market between the competitors with
unique identity. With the help of unique identity sale of product also increased easily (Pelton,
Storm, and Leng, 2019). In t shirt challenge all skills are used by the candidates for create the
product with unique identity (Rajamma, and Sciandra, 2020). T shirt is that type of product
which is consumed by the all customer segment in high rate. Uniqueness is a essential element
for any organization for maintaining the brand image in market between the competitors for long
time.
Various skills -
 Communication skills – Here communication refers to the friendly connection with
other department, staff and with suppliers. In this challenge I realize that friendly
connection with others is important for developing products like T Shirt etc. with unique
identity. In various companies also communication between the departments are highly
maintained for run their operational activities smoothly.
 Teamwork – Here team work refers to involvement of various candidate who have
different characteristics for developing the product. It includes designing, putting
animations and so. For developing product my special characteristic is putting various
design to product to attract the consumers easily.
 Time management and meeting skills – In this stage I realize the for increasing the
sales sending the finished product to various shops in time is very essential. For
organization time is a very essential aspect and according to that management fixed the
timing for production which leads to increase profit for long period.
 Business skills – In my opinion effective consumer service is very essential for
maintaining better relation with them for a long time. For providing best service to
customers I tried to understand the feedbacks of existing customers. Then according to
that I used effective strategies for example pricing strategies which helped to attract the
consumers in large number.
An action plan how I will develop these skills over three years at university
Communications skills – In presentation this skill are very essential for presenting and
brand attractively in front of customers (Papageorgiou, Wiberg and Persson, 2021). Effective
communication are also for dealing the consumers in organization or institute for a long time.

Due to this reason I develop my communication effectively with the help of reading reliable
books.
Time management skills – When I am working with operation department I learn the
proper time management for various activities. I learned from this department that when we do
any type of work first of we fix the time. Then according to that time I delivered best quality
service or task to management for example prepare the accounts systematically and so on.
Tuckman's theory on team work -
This theory is highly focused on the development of the students by using five different
different stages -
 Forming – It refers to the interaction of every team member between each others.
 Storming – In this stage characteristics of every team members are identified and then
according to that various new ideas are applied.
 Norming – In this stage identified strength and characteristic of particular candidate are
appreciated between team members.
 Performing – It basically refers to motivate the employee's for performing the employees
well in their job.
 Adjourning – Finally project are closed in this stage after achieving the success.
Action plan -
The smart strategies for developing the communicational skills are -
 Relevant – My aim is to develop this skill in long term with the help of reading reliable
information with the help of journals, newspapers and books.
 Measurable - My aim is to keep my performance very good with help of attempting
various practices.
 Achievable - With the help of improved skills I achieved lot of respect from seniors and
subordinates for long period.
 Time frame – I improved my skills with in eight months for made good presentation.

CONCLUSION
From the analysis of above information it concluded that for students facing challenges is
a very important task. Because with the help of evaluating various challenges their problem
solving ability are highly increased and their career are also secured. Effective challenges helped
candidates to understand the various situations and problems of the institute and team members
properly. Therefore understanding skills are very essential for preparing proper plan or solutions
to execute the project and and also for gaining the trust of the teammates for long time. With the
help of effective skills students easily give effective presentation in front of the audience which
leads to increase the confidence level of students for long time.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bringle, R.G., Hahn, T.W. and Hatcher, J.A., 2019. Civic-minded graduate: Additional evidence
II. International Journal of Research on Service-Learning and Community
Engagement, 7(1), p.11481.
Cook, P.S., 2018. Examining the graduate attribute agenda in Australian universities: A review
of (continuing) problems and pitfalls. Learning and Teaching, 11(3), pp.49-62.
James, H. K. and Gregory, R. J., 2021. The dawn of a new competency-based training era: a 70-
year perspective on post-graduate training reform in trauma and orthopaedic
surgery. Bone & Joint Open, 2(3), pp.181-190.
Papageorgiou, A., Wiberg, A. and Persson, J., 2021. Introducing multidisciplinary design
optimization to graduate level engineering students. Proceedings of the Design
Society, 1, pp.1917-1926.
Pelton, M., Storm, S.D. and Leng, H., 2019. Strong coupling of emitters to single plasmonic
nanoparticles: exciton-induced transparency and Rabi splitting. Nanoscale, 11(31),
pp.14540-14552.
Rajamma, R. K. and Sciandra, M. R., 2020. Planning and implementing a graduate online team-
taught marketing course. Journal of Marketing Education, 42(2), pp.108-122.
Scriven, R. and Strampel, K., 2020. Collaboration in curriculum design: Embedding
employability for future graduate success. ETH Learning and Teaching Journal, 2(2),
pp.497-501.
Singh, M. K. M., 2019. International graduate students’ academic writing practices in Malaysia:
Challenges and solutions. Journal of International Students, 5(1), pp.12-22.
Werners, A. and Fajt, V., 2021. What a veterinary graduate should know about basic and clinical
pharmacology: A Delphi study to finalize day‐1 competencies. Journal of Veterinary
Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 44(4), pp.568-574.
Wu, Z.V., 2019. Factors Contributing to TESOL Employment: A Graduate Perspective. BC
TEAL Journal, 4(1), pp.13-32.