Developing Essential Skills to Overcome Graduate Challenges

This report provides an executive summary, introduction, main body, and conclusion focused on skills and challenges faced by graduate students. The main body discusses the importance of communication, time management, and business skills in overcoming challenges such as the apprentice, presentation, and T-shirt challenges. It emphasizes the application of communication skills in resolving workplace issues, effective time management for meeting deadlines, and the role of business skills in understanding customer needs. The report includes an action plan with SMART objectives for skill development, and the conclusion highlights the significance of self-evaluation and skill analysis for professional success. References to books and journals support the report's findings.

Graduate challenge
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This statement concentrates on clearing the idea of importance that different skills and
aptitudes holds for a student. In student life, there are various qualities those are needed to solve
various issues and challenges faced by individuals in their student life. If a student wants to plan
for an efficient future endeavour than, it is essential that he or she is concentrating on developing
these skills. This report will identify and apply four major skills to shoot solution for challenges
like apprentice challenge, presentation challenge and T-shirt challenge.
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Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................4
Communication skills..................................................................................................................4
Time management skills.............................................................................................................6
Business skills:............................................................................................................................7
Action plan..................................................................................................................................7
SMART objectives......................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9
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INTRODUCTION
There is a famous quote that for every challenge, issue or problem, there is some definite
solution. This will apply same to student life also (Benson and Morgan, 2016). A student has a
long life ahead and therefore, to become successful in future professional capacity, it is important
that challenges confronted in student life itself is overcome. This report will include discussion
of development of various skills so that they can be applied to counter on different issues.
MAIN BODY
Communication skills
Communication skill can be explained as that quality of a person that helps him to
interact with other employees at the place. Any communication process can be considered as
effective only in the case when the intended message by the sender is received by the recipient in
the same meaning. In any professional place, the most important element for smooth operations
is effective communication process. This can be elaborated as a process of transmitting
information to other members in a place. A two way process is important in important in any
communication process. If only one way flow will be there, than it will lead to blockage of
information on one side only. This process is knows as bilateral communication process.
Bilateral communication process includes deliver of original message from side of sender and
replying back from receiver in form of feedback. This type of communication process is known
as circular process (Cheng, Tsai and Liang, 2019). If there is no communication process in
circular motion, than it will lead inefficient communication of information and it will lead to
confusions and conflicts in workplace.
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As mentioned in the introduction part, this report is prepared to overcome challenges in
student life. Following is a description of application of communication skills in resolving below
challenges:
 Apprentice challenge: This is the issue that comes in front management of an
organisation in the case when it wants to determine those employees who are under the
section of creative and also productive set of employees. This determination will lead to
creating a strong set of employees those can easily be directed and will also produce high
productivity. This is an important step as it will lead to find such individuals who are
capable enough to take on the position of making decisions and also to improve
productivity level (Lencina, 2018). Communication skill will assist the process of solving
this issue through interaction between management and employee level. Through this
confrontation, everyone will come to know about pros and cons of each and every
individual which is the sole issue of apprentice challenge.
 Presentation challenge: In today's intense competitive business world, the most
important thing is presentation. This will help management of every company to convey
their ideas and opinions clearly to every stakeholder of the organization. These
stakeholders includes employees, customers, government and other interested participants
in the operations of business. This process of conveying message can be performed
through presentation. The most important requirement of making a communication
process successful is communication skills. Two important components of effective
presentation is to collect information and data and than presenting that to the stakeholder.
Both parts include communication and hence, to give an effective presentation, it is
important that communication skills can pose great help.
 T-shirt challenge: This is an activity in which a T-shirt is printed and is used to market
the idea of business. This poses a challenge for the company when, it becomes hard for
salesperson to convince the other person for that idea or product. Through effective
communication process, this idea can be easily conveyed to other person and will also
prove to be helpful in overcoming this issue (Martin, 2018).
Time management skills
There are different traits of a successful professional role. These traits have one important
skill and that is time management skill. One thing that holds high value in professional category
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is commitment. An individual should fulfil what he or she is committing, and to fulfil this
commitment, requisite is to stick to time frames. In the face of difficulties and tight deadlines,
effective time management allows individuals to complete a given task in a particular time
period. Good time management skills help to boost image and step forward in the workplace
while a person can handle their calendar and deadlines.
 Apprentice challenge: To develop an overall understanding of all information and
working practices, it is important to attend all sessions on timely basis. This basis creates
the importance class for developing time management skills. As I lack in time
management skills, therefore, I found it difficult to take on every session in stipulated
time. This ultimately resulted in confronting apprentice challenge (McDermott, 2019).
 Presentation challenge: According to a very famous fact, that an information is useful
only till the time, it is actually required. After expiry of required time period, this data
holds no importance. Therefore, in light of above statement, presentation is also a
technique to convey information to various stakeholders. If this information is not passed
on time, than it holds no value. Therefore, time management skills are very important.
 T-shirt challenge: This is basically a technique of marketing ideas and opinions in
targeted market. The sole factor of success of a marketing plan is to firstly identify needs
and wants of customers. Therefore, to manage this understanding, it is important that
needs and wants are determined on time.
Business skills:
These are often referred to as soft skills. These qualities can be explained as those cations
which helps management to understand the needs and wants of customers. Through this,
company will be able to improve their performance in market place. To illustrate, soft skills are
leadership, communication, team work, problem solving, analytical skills, etc. These all qualities
will help an individual to take on their activities, roles and responsibilities in an efficient manner.
 Apprentice challenge: To complete an apprenticeship program, the most vital quality or
skill is the learning capabilities. During this process, I have monitored my learning
practices and is on the conclusion that through these skills, I will be be able to
successfully complete apprentice program (Sheehan, 2020).
 Presentation challenge: A business presentation needs to be prepared in professional
quality so that it can result in identification of the purpose of preparing report, activities
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in past and that for future course of action. Analytical skills that are part of business skills
will help in presenting opinions in smart and effective manner.
 T-shirt challenge: The main success factor of a marketing plan is to understand the needs
and wants of customers. To develop this understanding required skill is analytical skill
which is a part of business skill. To present idea in front of customers, most significant
value is business tactics.
Action plan
Action plan is basically the planning of future course of action that will help in projecting
the action line through which one can reach to his or her ultimate objective. Present action plan is
prepared on the basis of self evaluation done in above part of the report. After whole process, it
has been figured out that skills required to develop my professional capacities are rime
management skills and team working skills. For these skills, action plan is outlined as below:
 Specific: I will have to formulate specific objectives so that I can they can be easily
achieved.
 Measurable: objectives should be measurable in terms of qualitative terms, so that, after
completing the process, results can be quantified (Yamada and et.al., 2017).
 Achievable: objectives should be realistic. They should not be like which cannot be
achieved in specific time period.
 Time bound: There should be a fixed time period for achieving objectives, so that things
can move efficiently and effectively.
SMART objectives
After the process of self evaluation, I found out my lacking areas and therefore, to
improve them, following is my objectives:
 To improve my professional capabilities in future, I have decided to improvise my team
management skills within coming 3 months so that it can reflect in my participation in
team activities. The main goal is to improve my professional value by 25% more.
 To enhance time management skill within 4 months by taking participation in time bound
task in order to reduce time related challenges by 20%.
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CONCLUSION
From the above assignment, it can be concluded that to be successful in professional
capacity, it is important to take on the process of self evaluation by an individual. This will
include analysing skills and qualities so that they can be directed in achieving desired goals and
objectives. Analysis of skill is required for student, learner or professional in order to manage
their working activities in appropriate manner. The analysis of above determines different skills
and required needs for its improvement for the self-development. This analysis could be based
on arising challenges that may create hurdles in learning and development.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Benson, V. and Morgan, S., 2016. Social university challenge: Constructing pragmatic graduate
competencies for social networking. British Journal of Educational Technology. 47(3).
pp.465-473.
Cheng, Y.H., Tsai, C.C. and Liang, J.C., 2019. Academic hardiness and academic self-efficacy
in graduate studies. Higher education research & development. 38(5). pp.907-921.
Lencina, R.G., 2018. Social Responsibility: A New Challenge in Graduate University
Education. Annals of Geophysics. 60.
Martin, D., 2018. First Semester: Graduate Students, Teaching Writing, and the Challenge of
Middle Ground by Jessica Restaino. Community Literacy Journal. 12(2). pp.102-105.
McDermott, R.J., 2019. Life, Career, and Graduate School–Challenge and Opportunity for
Students. Florida Public Health Review. 12(1). p.8.
Sheehan, M., 2020. Learning by Doing: The Challenge of Aligning Theory and Practice in
School-Based, Post-graduate, Teacher Education Programmes. In Teacher Education in
Globalised Times (pp. 261-272). Springer, Singapore.
Yamada, T. and et.al., 2017. Resting-state functional connectivity-based biomarkers and
functional MRI-based neurofeedback for psychiatric disorders: a challenge for developing
theranostic biomarkers. International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology. 20(10).
pp.769-781.
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