This assignment required us to read roughly 10 articles, graphs, excerpts and infographics. The first few readings were centered around skills that are valuable for life, as well as to employers. The second chunk of readings was also based on important skills and even included a skills self-assessment. The last chunk of readings included reasons why new college hires got fired and also provided strategies on how to perform well in this course.
Following all of these readings, I had to pick 3 skills from the first group of readings that I wanted to develop further, 3 skills from the 2nd chunk of readings that I want to develop in this course, and 3 strategies from the last grouping that I will follow to do well in the course. I then had to tell one other person about all of my choices. Next, I had to create a discussion board post stating my choices of skills and strategies, why I chose them, and cite who I told about them and why.
To recap what I learned, I essentially gained a long list of skills and strategies that I would like to improve upon and master to use not just in this course, but also life in general. I could list a ton of different random pieces of information I learned, but I think it is most effective to write about the skills and strategies I chose to write about in my discussion board post.
From the first section of articles, the 3 important skills I learned about and wanted to improve upon were creativity, computer skills, and self-confidence. I decided that creativity was important because it allows people to adapt to new situations and create ideas. I discussed how computer skills are important since the modern world revolves so much around technology. Finally, I thought self-confidence was important because it allows you to do essentially anything you put your mind to.
The second section of articles allowed me to learn about problem-solving, asking questions and taking risks. I talked about how problem-solving is important because unexpected things can happen in school or work. Asking questions is a good skill because it helps with learning new things and being comfortable with others. Taking risks can be important because it can lead to new discoveries.
Finally, in the last section of readings, I learned about the strategies of taking initiative, working ahead, and paying attention to details, and talked about how I will utilize these to perform well in the course. I plan on applying these to the course by working ahead on assignments as well as copying all assignment instructions into a word document and highlighting steps as I complete them.
I talked to my good friend about these skills and strategies, his initials are DC. We have great conversations about life and how to be better versions of ourselves, so I figured that applying these skills and strategies was a great way to connect our friendship and this assignment.
Reflecting on this assignment, I think it was definitely valuable. There were a ton of different skills mentioned, and reading through them is a good way to put them in your mind and think about how each skill applies to your own life. For example, when I go through my everyday life, I am not thinking about computer skills, but reading about it in an article makes me want to improve this specific skill, and can lead me to pursue a change.
Additionally, there was a lot of overlap within the articles. However, I think this is a good thing because different authors are reinforcing that these skills are important, which is a good indicator that they actually are important to have and pursue!
Also, even though there was a lot of overlap, there were also skills I never thought about or things that you wouldn’t expect. For me, the thing that sticks out is that employers don’t value GPA nearly as high as other skills, it is nearly 20th on their list! This just goes to show that the skills you expect to be important in the long run aren’t always super accurate.
The addition of the strategy readings at the end was nice too, because it brought things from a large scale, like future employment, to a smaller scale, this course. It was nice to go over ways to succeed, especially early on in the semester, so that I could apply these skills until the end of the course.
Overall, I think this was a very good idea for an assignment. It provides so much information about the skills and strategies that are important to master for this class as well as in the real world. Even though people know about many of these skills, they often go unsaid. Reading about them allowed me to process them more and made me more dedicated to improving upon them going forward!
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