Skills acquired: Personal Development Review

I have benefited immensely from the in many aspects, including developing my personal skills. The skills that I acquired during the course which I appreciate the most include communication skills, cultural awareness, teamwork, and time management.

McKenna (2004, p.664) relates the management skills to the behaviours and identifies them to be sets of actions performed by an individual that lead to a certain objectives

Before starting my degree I did not consider communication skills to be as much of importance as I consider it now. My communications skills have improved during the course due to two reasons. First, on academic level, through cases studies and other materials I was pointed to the importance of communication skills for a person in social, family, and especially work settings. Second, I was taught about the importance of communication skills in a practical way. I can illustrate my statement in the following way.

There were some lecturers whom I used to see regularly within and around the college but was not impressed by them in any way to put it mildly. However, once they started teaching us my opinions about them changed dramatically in a positive way due to their teaching styles and mainly, communication skills, and I know that it was not only me who has experienced that. Today I know about the importance of communication skills and also I know that once I return to the full-time work life my carrier would benefit due to my communication skills.

Another personal skill which I developed during the course and consider to be important for my future career is my cross-cultural skills. Before starting the course I did not think much about the influence of culture on people’s behaviour and mentality. During the course through interacting with representatives of different cultural backgrounds and learning about the importance of culture in classes I did realise the immense role cultural factors play in work settings. The application of my cross-cultural skills in work settings in the future would help to create more tolerant, diverse and overall efficient working environment.

Being an efficient team player and appreciating the role of teams are also among the skills which I have acquired during my course. I was taught in academic level and through practical classes about the importance of ability of working in teams and contributing to the teams. Because in any setting the achievement of the team effort will be always greater than the sum of individual achievement of members of the group. But in order to achieve this, teams must function in an efficient environment. Today I know how to create such an efficient environment for the teams; therefore I am confident about my future carrier.

The course I am completing helped me significantly to sharpen my time management skills as well. Prior to starting the course I did not follow any personal timetables or daily plans for a variety of reasons, but mainly because I did not recognize its importance and therefore didn’t give due attention to it. However, the strict deadlines for the university assignments meant that unless I did not plan my activities beforehand and follow them, I could not proceed with my studies. After learning how to stick to the plan I realized that I could get more things done than it was possible ever before. Time management skills are very important for manager due to the fact that most of the decisions needed to be taken in their proper times and projects need to be managed within the schedule specified beforehand.