Anthony Reid

Business Management

Personal Development and Planning

Reflective report assignment

During my first year of studying in the Cardiff Metropolitan University I have found myself using a number of skills that I was previously taught in my school and now this set of skills is been all brought up together and represented in a more specific and detailed view throughout the PDP course. PDP e-lessons were a good source, which I have used when I have found my self stuck with the referencing and the way to put the sources list in the end of my work the right way.

Academic skills

Note making is one of the skills that I have applied fully and at which I feel strong. The basics of making the effective notes from printed sources is a very important skill that I have learned and applied quite a lot during the study year. It helped me to quickly take down important notes mostly in a format of bullet points during lectures and seminars, while going through photocopies and piles of hand outs that where given out by lecturers at seminars. By knowing that the notes have to be effective; i.e. focused, organized, targeted and the most important for me – useful, forced me to improve myself in organizing the notes for each subject in a different note taking book as well as a separate electronic folder in a notes app on my iPad, which is synced to Google drive. Another very helpful technic that I have been using since the first time I have started learning languages is note making using PINT. This is the technic that I still use heavily for my Chinese language. It help me in a way that the notes with the Chinese characters are hang nearly in every corner of my flat where do some kind of things, for instance while brushing my teeth in the morning – there are three characters written on the sticky notes on the mirror in front of me.

Another skill that I do feel strong at is academic writing skills. This set of skills was given to me several years ago at school level and then were further improved at a level and then university. I have learned how to establish the purpose of what I am writing as well as choosing an appropriate structure of an assay to communicate with the initial assay assignment. The logical progression of well-researched and correctly referenced ideas is the main part of the academic writing skills. I have not really used these skills in the first year of university but I feel that the second year will come with number of assays and tasks, which will require my academic writing skills.

One of the skills that I had some difficulties with was the skill of making references. I always found it very hard for me to understand when I needed to include a quotation and a reference, and some times I have been making a lot of mistakes with the construction of the references lists nearly every single time I have tried putting them after my assays and other types of work. Another good example was when I was writing a long time taking assay, that I have initially delegated specific days for it, and in the end several weeks later I have simply forgot which specific sources I have used when I was writing the first parts several weeks ago, so it turned out for me in re-writing the whole work again. I was going to go through the referencing e-lesson right before the begging of the second year studies.

Looking at other types of skills, I can say that I had some little difficulties with the summary writing. Some times I felt my self stuck when I have tried to make a summary from an article or an assay, or just a pdf that was given at a seminar. My opinion is that I have to tackle this problem with more progressive note taking especially in the way of writing as less bullet points as possible, and try writing more of a text style format.

Transferable skills

When looking at my transferable skills, self-management was one of the skills that I have not had any issues with. My learning was deep enough, but I have felt a need that I have to pay more attention at the feedback of the lecturers, so that I try and improve the grades given for assignments. Even I have tried beginning doing the set assignments earlier, I have always found my self finishing everything on the last night before the dead line – to fight this problem, I am looking into using the calendar/reminder program on my iphone next year, so that next time straight after receiving an assignment with a long-term dead line, I will evaluate total time needed to complete the assignment.

Team working was a skill in which I have had several issues with. During the academic year I was a member of several small teams, each time we were working on a group presentations. And every single time it all started from choosing team members, who first several times were friends, who tried staying it the same groups, and then issue after issue became enemies. As it turned out, there is always some one that has to be a team leader – the one who is going to chase every one, and who is going to organize every one, the person who is basically in charge of the team. And the simple problem was that there is a majority of people who does not want to lead, they just want to sit and do nothing, and really there is no real way to motivate them, and all you are faced with is to do the work for them and give to print outs in the end into their hands to read the prepared text out. I have definitely learnt to choose team members carefully, and perfectly those people who are not my friends.

Application of numeracy is a skill that I feel very strong at. But I have had difficulties communicating with team members whose numeracy skills are worse than mine, and that was a slight problem for me, that gave me a feeling that my team members are not as well educated, so why did I choose him to be in my team, and should I delegate him the hard tasks and better to give him something more easy to complete. My opinion is that basics of good numeracy skills are a mandatory thing for every student.

Application of information technology – basic IT skills, word processing, spreadsheets, internet etc, is one of a few skills that nearly every modern student is familiar with thanks to the modern time of education. Every person that I had to work with had an idea of how to use the PowerPoint, and even one of the team members once subjected to use the prezi.com – alternative method to the power point.

Career-specific skills

One of the career-specific skills that I feel strong at is my languages. I currently learn mandarin Chinese at the university, and it is my fourth language. I have previously found myself using all of my languages in the business area, mainly writing e-mails or calling Chinese or Russian suppliers. Also this summer I have worked in an international firm as a English-Russian translator, and I have also used some of my Chinese. I am looking forward to continue my studies and improve my Chinese further.

Management skills in my own business are a career-specific skill that I highly want to improve. I have found myself going either too optimistic with the people that worked with me in my own startup projects. I have been going too optimistic with people and have always thought that they are thinking same way that I do, but as it came out, it does not work like that. As for an example, several months ago, my business partner and I were manufacturing a certain low cost product and were selling it online worldwide. Two days after the start date 10 items were sold to places outside of the UK and only 2 were sold to buyers inside UK, the shipment costs which my business partner provided to me before the start of the business eventually came out wrong. The cost of shipping outside of the UK came out extremely expensive and did not bring us any profit at all. This lesson taught me not to trust those people who work for me for a small amount of time and always check their work; at least I start trusting them well enough.

Also, team working, was another skill that I have previously written about, but it has also touched me when I have worked this summer with a team of people. There is nothing more really to say about it, but what is important is that there should be as much practice as possible for every person to improve his team working skills.

To conclude, PDP course is a useful course that has its meaning and point. But in my own opinion, it should be improved. I think that the e-lessons should be turned into real lessons, that way larger number of students would actually learn something from those PDP courses. The e-lessons should be made more user-friendly and easy to reach.

Reference list:
PDP e-lessons: https://tsr.uwic.ac.uk/Learning/AcSkills/Course/csmpdp/03_brm4007_01.html http://blackboard.uwic.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/pid-1998865-dt-content-rid-627249_1/courses/BRM4007_YR_12/10_brm4007/index.htm http://blackboard.uwic.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/pid-1998866-dt-content-rid-796635_1/courses/BRM4007_YR_12/E-lesson%2011%20-%20transferable%20skills/index.htm http://blackboard.uwic.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/pid-1998867-dt-content-rid-627327_1/courses/BRM4007_YR_12/12_brm4007/index.htm https://tsr.uwic.ac.uk/Learning/AcSkills/Course/csmpdp/index.html https://tsr.uwic.ac.uk/Learning/AcSkills/Course/csmpdp/04_brm4007_01.html