Study Skills for Higher Education - Project 1 and 2 Analysis Report

This report delves into the crucial role of study skills in higher education, emphasizing their impact on a student's confidence, competence, and self-esteem. It explores essential skills like communication, leadership, and technical expertise, along with their application in the professional world. The report examines the importance of work experience in building a compelling CV and provides strategies for students to gain experience through virtual internships, peer connections, and self-initiated projects. Furthermore, it highlights the skills students should cultivate during their studies, such as communication, leadership, technical proficiency, and decision-making, and their relevance in the workplace. The report includes a personal reflection on the student's CV and how these skills have been applied to enhance it, offering valuable insights for students aiming to excel academically and professionally.

Study Skills for Higher
Education
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Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
PROJECT 1......................................................................................................................................3
PROJECT 2......................................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11
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INTRODUCTION
Study skills are those skills which enables an individual to learn and study efficiently.
Establishing effective study skills in higher studies is possibly the most critical area for
development and growth a student can pursue. Study skills are considered beneficial for those
students looking for higher studies as it helps the students in increasing confidence, competence
as well as self-esteem. Some of the major study skills that a student should have while opting
higher studies involves skills for composition and documentation, problem-solving and critical
thinking, communication and intrapersonal, leadership and research etc. This essay will
emphasise on role of work experience in CV and how a CV can be made effectively without any
experience. In addition to this, it will also include skills that a student should develop while
studying and the role of these skills at workplace.
PROJECT 1
Life has many stages and getting a job is one of the most critical and important aspect of life. But
in such a competitive world finding a suitable job is not an easy task (Granovetter, 2018).
Uncertainty like corona virus pandemic had created chaos, as a huge number of people had lost
their job and are looking for jobs along with the recently graduated candidates. This has boosted
the competition and companies are preferring candidates with experience. Students are facing
difficulties in getting a suitable job as they do not have experience, to tackle this problem there
are certain ways by which their CV can be enhanced:
Get Experience Online
Virtual experience provides young individuals or students an opportunity to attain experience,
developing the skills and boosting the chances to get hired by digitally doing a job or internship
sitting at home (Siegle, Amspaugh and Mitchell, 2021). For the majority of online internship or
job all a student need is a laptop or computer and a stable high speed internet connection. Virtual
internships include monitoring using regular meetings by supervisors and mentors. The main
focus of such internship is on major project rather than working at small tasks. Improvement in
technology and growing trend of social media is promoting the virtual internship or job. Adding
such experience of virtual internship in CV can benefit the students in getting a competitive edge
above others. Apart from this, there are other benefits of digital internships such as it is cost
effective and accessible from any location, enhance the technical skills of candidates etc.
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Connect with Peers
Making good connections with the colleagues can help the candidates to work efficiently
and effectively. Positive relationship with peers increases the productivity and performance as
the employees feel more connected with the workplace. During the pandemic, it was difficult to
maintain in-person interaction, but online platforms such as Skype and Zoom facilitated the
conversation between peers (van Laar, et.al., 2019). There are various benefits of positive
connection between peers such as having peer relationship helps the students in interacting with
people. This can enhance their performance and motivates them to work more effectively.
Another benefit is that having positive relationship enhances the morale of team as peers feel
connected with each other, thus increasing the cooperation.
Make Your Own Experience
Students while studying can also opt for gaining experience by their own. There are many
ways by which an individual can gain own experience that will help them in making career
decisions and capturing opportunities. Identifying the missing skills and filling those gaps can be
a part of attaining own experience, apart from this analysing the skills required by recruiters and
preparing self for those position and interviews can help the candidates in making themselves
suitable for the industry (Reed, 2019). Moreover, candidates can gain own experience by opting
options like freelancing jobs, internships, seasonal roles, contract jobs, volunteering etc. These
options can improve the CV as these will help the students as they will learn various skills and
can expand their professional network. At the time of hiring, employers try to find out the soft
and hard skills of candidate, and these skills can help the candidate in gaining advantage over
others. Employers may derive that these extra skills can be beneficial for the organization.
Focus on Skills Over Setting
Skill means the set or combination of knowledge, personal qualities, experience, abilities
etc. that an individual have gained or developed through life or work. Each individual has
different set of skills depending on their interests, abilities and qualities (Edin, et.al., 2022). A
candidate who possess more skills are considered more competent and desirable for a particular
post. While studying in university, students must also focus on attaining extra skills as this will
help them in expanding their professional competencies. Employers prefers candidates with
higher skills as this will enable them differentiating with other candidates and choosing the most
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suitable one. Skills can be developed by practicing new techniques for completing a task,
studying, training or experiencing new tasks. It is essential for candidates to be updated about the
trending skills and skills with more demand, this will help him/her to work for such skills by
which he/she can be preferred by employers.
Personal experience: Are you happy with your CV? Why/ why not?
I am happy with my CV and reasons are stated below:
During the lockdown, I fully utilised the vacant time by focusing on my personal
development by improving my skills. I joined several online programs and courses, which helped
me in getting additional skills, knowledge and certificates. During this period, I also joined a
virtual internship through which I got to know about corporate culture and organizational
structure. Addition of all these enhanced my CV and will attract the attention of employer. Apart
from all this, I designed my CV by adding summary of my skills and key accomplishments.
Rather than adding unnecessary stuff I added quantitative data of my accomplishments and
academics. I have good communication skills which helped me in interacting with people and
making professional network. Interacting with people updates me about changes in industry and
market trends. While preparing my CV, I highly focused on attention to detail, as this is highly
valued by employers because applicant with attention to details shows that they strive for
perfection in everything they do. Avoiding silly mistakes, grammatical errors, spelling error and
badly formulated sentences shows the attention to details. At last, these all addition in my CV
may help me in getting competitive advantage over other candidates and attracting the
employers.
PROJECT 2
Skills which should be developed by students while studying in university
Having good communication skills is essential for a student to get a successful future career.
Development of communication skills should be one of the core elements of higher education.
Good communication skills mean ability to deliver the message effectively and interacting
intelligently with peers and higher authorities (Ellison, 2015). The type of communication or its
medium can be change along with the time, but the importance of these skills remains the same.
This skill will help the students in building relationship with fellow students but it will also help
to communicate with teachers. Good communication skills help a student in succeeding in
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career. Student must be aware about the wants and the way to attain them. Being an effective
communicator can help propelling the career (Boyle, et.al., 2014). These skills can lead student
to land in an interview and passing the selection process. Efficiency to articulate well will
provide a significant advantage. Good communication skills comprise discussing the problems,
requesting information, maintaining good human relation interacting with others etc. These skills
help in being understood well and also helps in understanding the needs of other people. Good
communication skills may come naturally in certain people, but these skills can also be learned
in several ways such as speaking up about the thoughts and ideas with others, actively listening
others, showing confidence in conversation, pronouncing the words correctly etc. Having poor
communication can lead to impose negative relationship at workplace and puzzled environment,
such environment can negatively impact the employees’ productivity and their morale. So it is,
necessary for an individual to be good at communication and students should focus on improving
this skill along with the studies.
Whether an individual is in college or at workplace, there are certain situation in which
he/she have to step up as a leader. There are moments outside the career, where an individual has
to depend on his/her leadership skills to uplift others. Leadership skills are the set of strengths
and power that encourage team members to accomplish a task (Rossiter, 2014). These skills
include planning and delivery, management of people, change management, strategic thinking,
and persuasion and influencing the team members. Effectively coordinating the power with
others and coming out smoothly from a complex situation is a quality of good leader. Other traits
of a good leader include being an effective communicator, delegation, integrity, being
accountable and responsible, creative, decisiveness, setting clear objectives and persisting in
achieving them etc. It is critical for students to develop these skills along with the studies to learn
the art of building team, managing teammates, defining the tasks and roles, and achieving the
desired goals effectively. This will also provide the students to identify and showcase their
interpersonal and communication skills. The leadership skills can be developed by volunteering
for new tasks to learn new skills and practice how to handle complex challenges. Facing
unfamiliar work and finding ways to extract more information from the available resources to
complete the task can be useful practice as there are certain complex situation where a leader has
to keep their composure to make sensible decisions. Another way to develop leadership skills
can be by teaching and sharing the information with others as this will help an individual to train
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the patience and thinking from the perspective of other person. Teaching a beginner will help in
developing the organizing and examining skills, which can be proved as critical skills while
leading a team.
Today’s business environment is highly complex as companies are depending heavily on
technology. Businesses are evidencing rapid advancement in technology and it is necessary for
them to adopt advanced technical measures in order to ease its operation and gaining competitive
advantage in industry. But, sometimes the technology can also arise complex problems and to
dealing with such tough situations require technical expertise to derive effective and reliable
solutions (Vapiwala and Buchholz, 2021). Nowadays, all companies require some sort of
technical support to accomplish certain tasks and processes related to computers and other
physical technological system. So, it is essential for students to develop technical skills as these
skills are in most demand and can help in getting a desirable job role. Technical skills are the
abilities, expertize, knowledge and competence required to perform specific technical and digital
task. No matter in what industry an individual is working, knowledge and idea of some technical
skills will be required to accomplish daily tasks. These skills help an individual by giving
fundamental knowledge and expertise and also can help him/her work more efficiently, boosting
the confidence level and making more valuable option for employers. Technical experts of gets
higher salary packages as compared to other generic job profile. A student can gain technical
skills by building understanding of technical frameworks, practicing on enterprise applications
like excel or PowerPoint, trying to stay current along the pace of rapid advancement of
technology, acquiring knowledge of project management etc.
Another skill that students should develop along with the studies is decision making skills as
possessing the ability to make quick and immediate but valid decisions is imperative in all
situations of life. Decision making skills can be the key skill in student life or at workplace
(Black, 2019). Taking some decisions can be easy and are almost automatic while some can be
very complex. Taking wrong decisions can bring consequences by which organizations can face
huge loss. Most of the decisions consists some amount of risks, it is essential for the decision
maker to critically assess the risks associated with the decision and taking measure to minimize
the risk level. While making a decision, a specific process is considered to be followed which
involves identifying the challenge as the first step, second is to devising the solutions, next is to
weighing the available options, fourth is to make a choice and selecting the best solution and last
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is to inform the stakeholders about the decision. Students should consider this process of
decision making while taking certain decisions. This will help them in effectively developing the
skills and making right decisions. Employers prefers candidates with effective decision making
skills as this will benefit them in improving the workplace productivity, creating appropriate
action plan in emergency situations, establishing trust with employees, reducing and resolving
conflicts etc.
Time Management skills are also considered as one of the most important skills for students
whether at school, university, workplace or any other part of life. Time Management means the
effective use of time or planning out the available time and controlling the time required to
accomplish a certain task to work more efficiently (SOBHI, HAJLOU and BABAEI, 2014).
Effective management of time enables an individual to plan his/her days in such a way that the
work is finished with less efforts and make most from the time left. The benefits of time
management include that it helps in tracking the deadlines and appointments, to focus more and
procrastinating less, avoiding unwanted stress, to set a better balance between work and life,
achieving the wants faster, to get more work done but in less time, avoiding wastage of time and
friction or problems, clearing the schedule to get more leisure time etc. Students can develop this
skill by creating daily schedules and sticking to it, wisely prioritizing the work, avoiding
multitasking and distractions, delegating the tasks, listing the tasks, taking regular breaks in
between work etc. Effective management of time will enable the students to become more
confident, organized and to learn new things more efficiently and effectively. Along with this,
having this skill will help them in tracking and coping up with the stress of added
responsibilities.
Creative thinking refers to the ability to develop new and innovative ideas and turn them
into reality. These skills can help the business to create new innovative and imaginative solutions
and collaborative work environment (Hokanson, 2017). It is essential for students to attain
creative thinking as this is demanded by most of the recruiters. Having this skill will enable an
individual to find the opportunities that can help to improve such situation in which finding a
solution can be difficult. Creative thinking can be an invaluable skill for the university students
as it will help them looking at complex situation and problems from a new perspective. As a
creative thinker student will be curious, imaginative and optimistic. They see complex situations
as a chance to prove themselves and challenge the assumptions by not giving up easily. Benefits
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that creative thinker can provide to a business involves identifying new opportunities for
business, embracing the challenges and risks, promoting the innovation, stimulating the mind
and improving the collaboration. These skills can be developed by encouraging open-
mindedness, promoting the diversity at workplace, considering flexible work arrangements,
participating in brainstorming sessions, embracing the failures, rewarding the creativity, etc.
Another skill on which student should focus in order to get a successful career in future is
confidence. It is very important for an individual to believe in self and the work to be done by
him/her (Turaga, 2021). It is being notices by employers and peers if there is pride in one’s
performance, as pride denotes commitment towards the work and his/her ability to be self-
motivated. Confidence in an individual can display employers that he/she can handle major
projects or tasks and progress within the company. Having confidence also helps in trusting the
decisions and ability to defend them. In complex situations, management often prefer such
people who appear confident, calm and capable under pressure. Some of the benefits of having
confidence involves that it will help in having more assertive and will help the person to be taken
more seriously, it will help in making the communication more effective. A confident person will
be more likely to complex but manageable situations. Student can develop confidence by
focusing on the impact they have on others and changing the viewpoint, acknowledging the
achievements by praising self and acting confidently at workplace or at university can help in
being confident.
Having organizational skills is also an important aspect on which employers can sort the
candidates as these skills help the businesses in achieving the objectives effectively and
efficiently. Organizational skills can help the individuals to be more productive, having a clean
and organized surrounding can help finding the needed things quicker, decreasing the
distractions and helps in improving the focus (Reece and Reece, 2016). Having effective
organizational skills can help an individual to be more suitable personally and professionally,
and it can be displayed in the completion of everyday responsibilities. These skills provide a
sense of control on everything by which the specific task can be achieved effectively. For a
person with strong organizational skills, deadlines can never be a concern as it helps in
determining the tasks to be done first. Employers do not only prefer individual who keeps their
workstation uncluttered, but they are looking for nimble employees who can help the
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organization in accomplishing its objectives and can be fitted in overarching organization
structure of company.
CONCLUSION
From the above illustrated essay, it can be concluded that having good study skills can
improve the ability to learn and interpret. It can help the students by increasing their confidence,
self-esteem and competence. But in today’s competitive environment, the need for experienced
candidates had increased and university students are facing difficulties while getting a suitable
job. But, there are certain ways by which university students can fill the gap like getting
experience online, connecting with peers and colleagues, making own experience and focusing
on developing skills. Along with this, there are various skills on which students should focus
while studying in university. These skills will help an individual personally and in career
development. Having skills will help people to be seen more positively by employers and to gain
competitive edge over other candidates. These skills can be developed by students by slightly
tweaking the lifestyle like change in perception, acting confidently, calmly communicating,
creating schedules etc.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Black, K., 2019. Business statistics: for contemporary decision making. John Wiley & Sons.
Boyle, D.M., Mahoney, D.P., Carpenter, B.W. and Grambo, R.J., 2014. The importance of
communication skills at different career levels. The CPA Journal, 84(8), p.40.
Edin, P.A., Fredriksson, P., Nybom, M. and Öckert, B., 2022. The rising return to noncognitive
skill. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 14(2), pp.78-100.
Ellison, D., 2015. Communication skills. Nursing Clinics, 50(1), pp.45-57.
Granovetter, M., 2018. Getting a job: A study of contacts and careers. University of Chicago
press.
Hokanson, B., 2017. Developing creative thinking skills: an introduction for learners.
Routledge.
Reece, B. and Reece, M., 2016. Effective human relations: Interpersonal and organizational
applications. Cengage Learning.
Reed, J., 2019. The 7 second CV: How to land the Interview. Random House.
Rossiter, D.E., 2014. Leadership skills. Infobase Publishing.
Siegle, D., Amspaugh, C.M. and Mitchell, M.S., 2021. Learning from and learning with
technology. In Content–Based Curriculum for high-ability learners (pp. 437-460).
Routledge.
SOBHI, G.N., HAJLOU, N. and BABAEI, K., 2014. The Effectiveness of Time Management
Skills Training on Students procrastination.
Turaga, R., 2021. Confidence Is the Key. IUP Journal of Soft Skills, 15(4), pp.34-41.
van Laar, E., van Deursen, A.J., van Dijk, J.A. and de Haan, J., 2019. Determinants of 21st-
century digital skills: A large-scale survey among working professionals. Computers in
human behavior, 100, pp.93-104.
Vapiwala, N. and Buchholz, T., 2021. Foundations for a Successful Career. Career Development
in Academic Radiation Oncology, pp.17-24.
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