Graduate Challenge: Self-Reflection and Future Competency Plan

This report delves into the Graduate Challenge, presenting three distinct challenges—Apprentice, Presentation, and T-shirt—undertaken to foster professional and personal development. The report includes a personal reflection on the competencies developed, linking the learning experiences to Gibbs' Reflective Cycle. It acknowledges improvements in communication and teamwork skills, while also identifying areas needing enhancement, such as emotional intelligence and time management. An action plan is proposed to address these areas, focusing on developing positive thinking, prioritizing tasks, and utilizing technology effectively. The ultimate goal is to enhance current competencies, promote mental well-being, and achieve greater results with minimal supervision. The report concludes that these challenges have been instrumental in identifying strengths and weaknesses, providing a foundation for future growth and success.

The Graduate Challenge

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Presenting three challenges.........................................................................................................3
Reflection....................................................................................................................................4
Action plan..................................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Proper action plan allow the person to achieve certain objectives and goals in timely
manner. Further, the present report is based on three challenges that have been completed as part
of learning course so that better professional and personal growth could be achieved in the
future. Moreover, the study will provide personal reflection based on the challenges that has
been completed during the course. Lastly, the report will provide detail action plan that will be
helpful in developing certain competencies in the future.
MAIN BODY
Presenting three challenges.
Apprentice challenge
This was quite interesting challenge as we were divided into certain groups of people and
were asked to conduct a group tasks based on different marketing topics with given deadline.
Also, through this task effective teamwork skills were developed as certain understanding and
knowledge has to shared among the group members. Moreover, collaborative working
environment has also enhanced my critical thinking skills that was required in the completion of
the tasks (Schaeper, 2020). Further I was able to organize things in well-defined manner and also
had the chance of delegating certain works among my team members. Moreover, this tasks has
allowed bringing creative ideas for the marketing topic that would also be helpful while working
in actual business environment. Furthermore, I have collected ideas on the topic that were
presented by my other team members and thus enhanced my knowledge. Also, I have learnt how
most of the business work through understanding the branding, pricing and budgetary concepts.
Presentation challenge
This was the challenge where the teams was asked to deliver the presentation on the
marketing and sales. Also, through this challenge I have enhanced my researching skills so that
relevant data could be collected from the verified sources. Moreover, I have understood
importance of various technicalities such as better use of graphs, videos and charts that earlier I
have very little knowledge of (Kalra, Gabrieli and Finn, 2019). Furthermore, through conducting
this challenge I had developed communications skills so that any queries regrading the topic
would be easily understood and clarified at same point of time. Thus, I have learnt knowledge
that business work in the environment that is very complex and thus each and every factor that

affects the organization need to be carefully analysed so that losses could be avoided.
Furthermore, I have known that during the group presentation I had failed in engaging with
audiences in better manner as result of which I have exceeded my time in delivering presentation
allotted by my assessor.
T-shirt's challenge
This was the quite challenging and interesting task that had been given in teams in which
I along with my teammates were asked to design any t shirt that would contain proper logo, and
design. Along with this, I have developed my excel skills as I have to prepare estimated budget
that would be involved in conducting branding and sales activities. Thus, this challenge has
developed my knowledge of how the organizations work with limited time and resources
irrespective of the size of the business (Miller and Morris, 2020). Also, I have developed certain
business competencies that are essential in working in complex business environment. Further,
this challenge have made me realize that marketing activities need to be undertaken with proper
analysis so that there are no losses in the future. Moreover, thus challenge have allowed me to
learn the advertising techniques so that with giving minimum cots maximum revenues could be
generated in the given period. Thus, through this challenge I have learnt how business teams
work with minimum supervision so that bests quality end product could be provided to the
customers.
Reflection.
From the above challenges that have been carried out during my learning process I was
able to develop certain competencies that are essential for my future growth and success. Also,
all the above learning during the course could be linked to the Gibbs reflective cycle that is
framework used by individuals to learn from the experiences so that better things could be
planned for the future events.(Gibbs' Reflective Cycle, 2022). Further, in earlier times I have
feeling that all these tasks in my learning course would not be carried out by me on time but in
the end I am satisfied that things have gone out very well than expected. Also, I have developed
effective communication skills that helped me to solve certain queries relating to the topic that
were earlier unclear to me. Moreover, my teamwork skills were also enhanced as I was able to
delegate the tasks that were assigned by my assessor according to certain strengths and weakness
that exist in each individual. Further, I have developed smaller amount of leadership skills so that

work could be carried out in systematic manner. However, I have little motivation and self-
confidence left during the challenges as one of my team member have left the group and hence
all its task responsibilities need to be reassigned among the teammates. Thus, it has created the
work pressure among the remaining members to complete certain tasks on time. Further,
motivation is very essential as it helps in coordinating the efforts of individual towards
achievement of certain desires or feelings (Brown and Palincsar, 2018). Further, it is known that
only motivated people are able to overcome certain obstacles in the best of manner. Also, I have
also realized during the completion of challenge that I have lack emotional intelligence due to
which I have considered all failures as threats rather than opportunities to build up again.
Moreover, I realized that right division of work helps in reducing the work pressure so that task
could be carried out smoothly without many efforts. However, from the overall challenges I have
realized that I would use Belbin team role to divide the work among the people so that better
results are achieved in future projects. Also, my time managements skills are very weak due to
which I have exceeded the total time that has been assigned by my assessor. Thus, I need to
focus and work on such skills by prioritizing my tasks so that most important tasks could be
completed in priority manner. Also, I have learnt that group think is very harmful and it might
result only in making bad and inefficient decisions in the end. Group-think is situation where
people fear in raising certain opinions in front of dominant person(Pouru-Mikkola and Wilenius,
2021). Thus, this type of awareness would be quite helpful for me while carrying out certain
activities in the future at professional level.
Action plan.
It is the process that help individual in taking steps so that certain goals and objectives
could be achieved in the given time-frame. Further, from the above challenges, I have analysed
certain inefficient skills that are essential were not displayed properly in the challenges and such
needed to be developed. Some of these are as follows:
Skills that need to
be improved
Steps that need to be
taken.
Resources
required
Success
criteria
Time scale
Emotional
intelligence
Think more with
positive mind,
engaging with people
None as such Taking
independent
decisions that
4-5 months

that are source of
motivation, hearing
motivational speakers
and successful leaders
to understand how
complex problems are
conducted in business
environment (Cohen
and et.al., 2018)
are results in
positive
outcomes,
praise from
the
supervisors for
any business
suggestions
provided.
Time management Prioritizing the tasks
so that most important
tasks could be
completed on time,
Making daily to do
lists, working on one
project at time, taking
frequent breaks so
that work can be
completed on given
time.
Using right
technology that
helps in
calculating
total time in
completing
each tasks,
planning and
scheduling of
things through
conducting the
time audit.
Achievement
of certain time
bound goals,
successful in
delegating the
rights tasks
6 months
Thus, from the above action plan I would be able to enhance my current competencies
that are required for future growth and success. Also, this action plan would help me in
conducting certain activities in timely and systematic manner so that current skills could be
easily developed (Kubat, 2018). Furthermore, developing time management and emotional
intelligence skills would allow me to gain extra additional opportunities in the future. Thus, it
would also promote my mental well-being as pressure on completing certain task would not be
there and all things could be managed properly and easily. Further, through maintaining the
appropriate motivation and confidence level I would be able to compete the assigned tasks with

minimum supervision. This would also help in achieving greater results with the least possible
mistakes and errors.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it can be concluded the t-shirt challenge, presentation and
apprentice challenge helped in identifying the certain weakness and strengths that is essential for
future growth and success. Also, the report had given personal reflection based on the challenges
that have been completed as part of learning process. Furthermore, detailed action plan had been
covered under the report so that certain business competencies that are essential in professional
growth of individual could be easily identified.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals.
Brown, A. L. and Palincsar, A. S., 2018. Guided, cooperative learning and individual knowledge
acquisition (pp. 393-451). Routledge.
Cohen, S.S. And et.al., 2018. Neural engagement with online educational videos predicts
learning performance for individual students. Neurobiology of learning and memory.
155. pp.60-64.
Kalra, P. B., Gabrieli, J. D. and Finn, A. S., 2019. Evidence of stable individual differences in
implicit learning. Cognition. 190. pp.199-211.
Kubat, U., 2018. Identifying the individual differences among students during learning and
teaching process by science teachers. International Journal of Research in Education
and Science. 4(1). pp.30-38.
Miller, T. and Morris, A., 2020. Bridging the skills gap: apprentice assistant practitioners having
an impact in mental healthcare services. Part 2. The AAP experience. British Journal of
Healthcare Assistants. 14(2). pp.58-62.
Pouru-Mikkola, L. and Wilenius, M., 2021. Building individual futures capacity through
transformative futures learning. Futures. 132. p.102804.
Schaeper, H., 2020. The first year in higher education: the role of individual factors and the
learning environment for academic integration. Higher Education. 79(1). pp.95-110.
Online.
Gibbs' Reflective Cycle. 2022. [Online]. Available through
:<https://www.ed.ac.uk/reflection/reflectors-toolkit/reflecting-on-experience/gibbs-reflective-
cycle>.