Academic Skills and PDP: A Roadmap to Professional Growth

This report provides an overview of personal and professional development, emphasizing the role of academic skills and Personal Development Plans (PDPs). It defines personal development as the continuous process of improving skills and knowledge to achieve life objectives, while professional development focuses on acquiring skills for career advancement. The report discusses the importance of setting short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals, providing examples for each category, and highlights the value of a PDP in identifying strengths and weaknesses, setting goals, and creating strategies for self-improvement. Ultimately, the report concludes that both personal and professional development are crucial for achieving success and satisfaction in life, and a well-structured PDP can serve as a roadmap for continuous growth.

Academic Skills and PDP

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Concept of personal and professional development....................................................................3
Value of short term goals with personal examples......................................................................4
Value of medium term goals with personal examples.................................................................5
Value of long term goals with personal examples.......................................................................5
Value of a Personal Development Plan........................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Academic skills is very important in order to enhance professional growth. Academic
skills provide benefits to professional people as it includes research, presentations, report writing
etc. now a days company also want to hire such candidates who have academic skills. Academic
skills also includes critical thinking. PDP is the action plan which helps to locate weakness so
that an individual can improve and achieve success (Fodorová, 2017). This report will discuss
the concept of personal and professional development. Further will explain short term, medium
term and long term goals. It will also discuss value of personal development plan with example.
MAIN BODY
Concept of personal and professional development
Personal development:
It refers to the skill which an individual develops in order to improvise them. For every
individual the meaning of personal development is slightly different because each of them desire
to develop different skills (Knight and Newby, 2019). The main motive of personal development
is to take right step so take desired goals can be achieved. Personal development can be
associated with personality. In order to enhance their personality people develop skills so that
they can achieve growth. It is the continuous process which is helpful in achieving objectives of
life.
It helps to become active and to take major life decisions. Personal development is helpful in
achieving success and satisfaction in the life. An individual can learn self improvement skills in
order to embrace themselves. Personal development includes those qualities which is developed
via training and education. Some people also thinks that personal development is for those who
wanted to achieve some higher goals in their life (Gorbunova and Sabirova, 2017). But its not
reality because when you ask to the most successful person then he or she will also says that they
are still improving. Learning is the continuous process so an individual requires new information
so that they can grow. So that is why it is said that learning should never stop.
Professional development:
It refers to the development which includes learning in order to maintain professional
credentials like skill or degrees so that an individual can attain professional goals. It is also

observed that employees who perform good are open minded and always ready to learn more. As
it can be said that different jobs require different skills. So employees require additional skills in
order to achieve success in the future. With the help of professional development employees can
learn new skills so that they become more efficient. Job training is the most important part of
professional development. Training is helpful in achieving or getting knowledge or skills which
are required while doing job. Professional development is important for those people who
wanted to grow in their professional career because nowadays companies hire those candidates
which have advanced knowledge or skills, so for that an individual have to develop new skill
(Welp and et.al., 2018).
Value of short term goals with personal examples
Short term goals are the goals which is needed to achieve in the near future. Here near
future refers to a day, week, month or 1 year. These goals has to be accomplish fast. It helps an
individual to achieve long term goals. This goal also give an idea to an individual that how much
they had travelled and how much still they have to travel so that they can reach to their
destination. Short terms goals are simple and often achieved easily. There is no need to give long
term commitment under short term goals. It is helpful in building momentum and once
momentum is build than individual can achieve long term goals also. It also helps in motivation
and provide right direction. It enhances self confidence and also provide quick feedbacks which
is helpful in measuring progress and performance. Short term goals takes little time to achieve
and it also give confidence to the person that now they can achieve medium and long term goals
also. Examples of short term goals: getting new certification, improving communication skills
and improving work life balance.
Communication skills is the vital skill and is helpful in achieving growth. It will also helpful in
building confidence and reduces fear. New certification is needed so that an individual get
promotion in their life and it is also essential for the purpose of learning (Dunn and Doolittle,
2020). There are many certification which can be done so an individual should select those
certification courses which matches with their desire and mind set. If talking about work life
balance then it is the important part because if an individual is not able to maintain or balance
work and life then it affects it work and life both. If an individual want to flourish in their career
then they have to improve their personal life as well.

Value of medium term goals with personal examples
Medium term goals are the goals which falls between short term and long term goals.
Goals which has to achieved between three to five years are said to be mid term or medium term
goals. When compared to short term goals than it can be said that mid term goals are good
enough because it gives times to make significant progress and not very quick like short term
goals and long term goals takes long time to get achieve (Ashurst, 2017). Mid term goals have
the benefits of both short term and long term goals because it is long enough so that standard
progress can be made and it is short enough to get completed in less time lets say in few years.
The advantage of mid term goals is that it can be set many in the lifetime. As mid term goals
takes few years to get accomplished so one can make many to achieve more satisfaction. In the
lifetime of an individual there priorities also changes with passing time.
So these goals can be set new as per the need like an individual can set career oriented goals
between 20-30 years, family oriented goals between 40-50 years and health related goals
between 60-70 years (McComb and Eather, 2017). Example of medium-term goals are
becoming manager, starting side business and learning IT related skills. To become manager
can be mid term goal because after working 3-4 years an individual desire to get the position of
manager. If a person want to become CEO of the company then they have to become manager
first. Along with job an individual can also start side business for extra income. As everything is
getting expensive nowadays and demand of people is also increasing. So in order to fulfil them
extra income is must. IT skills are the skill set which every individual should have. As IT skills
are needed in every department nowadays. So learning new IT skills will be helpful in improving
performance. IT skills will also helpful in making work fast and easy.
Value of long term goals with personal examples
As the name denotes these goals are the long and that can be accomplished within 10
years or more. They are the big goals and normally takes more time to get achieved. Long term
gaols cannot prepare within hours or in some days because it takes long time to achieve and
require proper planning, hard work and concentration. Imaging goals which have to be achieve is
easy but implementing them can be challenging. So in order to achieve long term goals, many
short term gaols have to be made. If an individual want to achieve long term goals then it can
break into short term goals. Breaking long term goal makes it easy to be achieved. Long term
goals is not easy to achieve because it requires immense of hard work and also patience. These

goals can be for personal life or for professional life as well. If these goals are planned and
executed in proper manner then it gives happiness and satisfaction (Niehaus and Wegener, 2019).
Long term goals require long term hard work as well. If an individual is sure that they can do
hard work for long period then only they should opt long term goals.
Examples of long term goals are buying house, saving for retirement and travelling whole
world. Desire of individuals are different and it ranges from person to person. There are people
who want to live in their own house but there are also people who prefer rented house only.
Purchasing house is long term goal because it requires huge amount. So an individual have to
save and invest for longer period so that he or she can buy a new house. Saving for retirement is
one of the most important thing. As at the age of 60, an individual do not work with same
capacity. So saving for retirement can be done in order to live stress free life in the future.
Travelling whole world is also long term goals because it requires money and time so that is why
it falls in the category of long term goal.
Value of a Personal Development Plan
Personal development plan can be said as the self reflection plan. It is the action plan
which consist of the goals and skills which an individual wanted to achieves. It also consists of
strategies and resources which is required in order to achieve such skills and objectives
(Importance of personal development planning., 2021). It shows that in what time skills or goals
can get achieved. So that is why it consists of time frame as well. This plan is made at the
workplace or while attending any learning institution. With the help of this plan one can find out
their strengths or weaknesses and can start to improve themselves. The plan consists of those
areas which an individual wanted to improve in order to enhance their personality.
Personal development plan or PDP have numerous benefits. As it is helpful in building career
change by learning new skills. Everybody wanted to achieve good in their career so PDP will be
helpful in that. So every one should make PDP so that they can find out that at what area they are
lacking so that they can work on those areas. It is also helpful in increasing dedication and
learning ability in an individual. It is also important to note that even if one cannot achieve goals
then also it is helpful in enhancing empowerment and encourages self improvement (Nikitin and
et.al., 2021).

CONCLUSION
This report will discuss about personal and professional development. Personal
development is related with the personality of an individual. It tells that what an individual
should build in terms of skills or knowledge so that they can grow. Professional development
happens if an individual wanted to achieve growth in their career. Short term goals can be
achieved within months, weeks but it does not take more than one year. Mid term goals are the
goals which takes more than one year but not more than 5 years. Then it comes to long term
goals which takes more than 10 years. In order to achieve long term goals it s better that it should
break into short term goals because it will become easy achieve. Personal development plan or
PDP is helpful in knowing those areas in which an individual is lacking. It is time bounded and
also suggests strategies so that goals or objectives can be achieved.

REFERENCES
Book and Journal
Ashurst, A., 2017. How to… develop a personal learning and development plan. Nursing And
Residential Care. 19(4). pp.236-236.
Dunn, R.J. and Doolittle, S.A., 2020. Professional development for teaching personal and social
responsibility: Past, present, and future. Journal of Teaching in Physical
Education. 39(3). pp.347-356.
Fodorová, K., 2017. Fulfillment of the professional development plan of pre-primary school
teachers. Konteksty Pedagogiczne. 1(8).
Gorbunova, N.V. and Sabirova, E.G., 2017. Pedagogical Design of Future Teachers’ Personal
and Professional Route. Man in India. 97(14). pp.217-226.
Knight, S.A. and Newby, W.G., 2019. The impact of professional development groups on
student counsellors’ personal and professional development. Western Undergraduate
Psychology Journal. 7(1).
McComb, V. and Eather, N., 2017. Exploring the Personal, Social and Occupational Elements of
Teacher Professional Development. Journal of education and Training Studies. 5(12).
pp.60-66.
Niehaus, E. and Wegener, A., 2019. What are we teaching abroad? Faculty goals for short-term
study abroad courses. Innovative Higher Education. 44(2). pp.103-117.
Nikitin, J. and et.al., 2021. Interdependence of approach and avoidance goals in romantic couples
over days and months. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B.
Welp, A. and et.al., 2018. The importance of reflecting on practice: How personal professional
development activities affect perceived teamwork and performance. Journal of clinical
nursing. 27(21-22). pp.3988-3999.
Online
Importance of personal development planning., 2021. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.londontfe.com/blog/Importance-of-personal-development-planning>

Appendix
goals strategies resources timeframe
Improving
communication skills
In order to improve
communication I will
talk with various
parties.
It will start reading
more books.
6 months
Becoming manager In order to become
manager I will start
mentoring.
I will build managerial
skills like decision
making skills etc.
2 years
Saving for retirement I will do extra work to
get extra income.
I will start investing so
that it can provide
more returns.
17 years.