Importance Of Acquiring Skills For Personal And Professional Growth Essay.

Reflected Evaluation of Skills Associated with Master's Level

It is important to learn about the skills and make improvements as per the necessity in order to meet the overall expectation of the corporate world or the organisation. Being a masters level student studying business administration, I have learnt about the importance of acquiring skills and gathering experiences for the further development of personal and professional self. While being masters I have learnt that it is important to have certain goals and objectives while pursuing the master's degree. The degree of business administration is one of the recognised fields where both personal and professional growth is very necessary for the betterment of oneself. During these courses, an individual goes through various kinds of self-assessment which helps in finding out the strengths and weaknesses which helps in the self-development process. For me, the main weakness is delivering a good presentation to the audience which is led by the various different factors that will be discussed in the following section.

This entire paper will be following the DIEP model for the reflection purpose which will help in understanding the entire scenario through four steps: Describe, interpret, evaluate and plan. The following section will also include critical evaluation of the skills that are highly associated with the study of master’s level. A reflection will also be presented about the performance experiences as well as expectations for the master level study. At the end of the paper, I will also be presenting a self-development plan which will help me in making improvement in my performances as a master level student.

This DIEP model is vastly used for the reflection purpose where each of the stages from the model helps in self-reflection to understand the situation, making interpretation from the situation and making a proper action based on the evaluation from the situation. According to the authors Boud and Walker, (1990), most of the learning takes place from the outer space of the educational settings. This DIEP model comprises four basic stages: Describe, interpret, evaluate and action, which clearly helps in understanding one's own experiences in the learning space and make the reflection. This process is really helpful for personal and professional development for future roles and responsibilities.       

Before the starting of the coursework, we were introduced with various kinds of skills that are necessary for the completion of the master's degree studies while keeping the great performances with the help of personal and professional development. While starting with the course work, I had a clear image about the clear differences between the undergraduate and postgraduate course. The style of learning and the approaches are very much different. The introduction about the skills has been helpful for us to understand how to work on the personal and professional development in order to build up the potential for the future performances.

In the following I will be discussing the skills that are required for a student of master’s degree in the business administration domain.

• Self-reflection and analysis through reflective analysis.
• Critical thinking process
• Communication skills
• Good presentation skills
• Time management skills  

Self-reflection and reflective analysis: the term reflection refers to a certain type of ability which helps in being responsible for own development by the autonomous learning process. In the master’s level learning, reflection plays a huge role to conduct reflection skills that can further help in developing skills (Chang, 2019). This reflection actively engages reflective learning, reflective thinking and practices that can help in evaluating everyday activities or the things that we are learning.

Self-reflection and Reflective Analysis

Critical thinking process: The critical thinking is a n integral part of the master degree course, especially for the business administration courses. With the help of these skills, an individual can develop the ability of thinking very rationally while making the right decision (Masduqi, 2011). This critical thinking is very much useful to solve problems or even come up with new ideas.  

Communication skills: the term communication refers to exchange of information through verbal and nonverbal process. This communication skill is very useful for an individual to express their feelings or establish good relationships with others (Gray, 2010). While learning about the communication, we learnt that no matter if it is a verbal or non- verbal communication, it can be done in both formal and informal ways. To avoid the conflict, it is always necessary to make the message clear and understandable by the audiences.   

Good presentation skills: good presentation skills are one of the most important foundations of the master's degree students especially for the MBA students who are about to be prepared for the world of professionals (Luthy and Deck, 2007). The good presentation skills require various kinds of minor skills which helps in enhancing the performances. From body language to communication, good presentation skills comprise every single factor that helps in enhancing the presentation delivery.     

Time management skills: Time management skills are helpful for the master’s students in prioritising tasks, completing work before deadlines or maintaining everything in a proper routine so that everything is aligned in a proper manner. This time management skills requires proper planning and scheduling based on prioritising (Mercanlioglu, 2010). In the future for the world professionals, the time management skills help the individuals in becoming punctual and disciplined for better performances.      

While starting this master degree course in the business administration domain, as i have mentioned previously, we were introduced to various kinds of aspects and skills that are really necessary to develop for the betterment of personal and professional performances. At the primary stage we were asked to take several self-assessment tests and that's when I found out about my strengths and weaknesses. This self-assessment has been helpful in learning what skills that can help me in achieving the better performances while learning about the weaknesses that are needed to be improved so that in future none of it can actually hinder the future growth and performances.

While working in a team I found out that I am very good at time management and maintaining work ethics which helped me in delivering better performances in the team and making greater contributions to the success of the tasks. Through the help of critical thinking, I was able to pull off any critical situation and also took part in the decision-making process.

However, as a master’s student, I lacked in performing during the presentation process. According to the authors Choudary and Ponnuru, (2015), during the presentation, a presenter not only delivers information but also explores himself or herself. During the presentation I was also able to understand or rather can say gather information by me about the skills. This has been an effective process to understand how the soft skills are important for a master degree student. Authors Shuayto and Borchers, (2001) have stated that there is huge importance of presentation skills for a master degree student in order to become professional for the future roles and responsibilities. The soft skills and especially the good presentation skills help with the competitive nature as well. From the studies I have learnt how presentation skills can be helpful in developing various kinds of skills such as it helps in developing better professionalism through better communication and experiences from various kinds of activities, reducing the chances of miscommunication to help in increasing the efficiency in the performances and lastly building up own morale and own networks I will be getting opportunity for creating networks or convey my feelings towards the others. While learning about the importance of good presentation skills I learn about various factors that can influence in having effective presentation skills. I observed how the verbal and nonverbal communication skills, body language, attitude, managing or confidence are helpful in having effective presentation skills. In the next sections I will evaluate these factors in order to better understand the factors where I am lacking behind and affecting my performances. Based on which an action plan will be addressed for the self-development of the soft skills.                        

Critical Thinking Process

During the master degree studies in the business administration domain, I was able to get the opportunity of being part of a team for all the team works which are necessary for the business administration learning process. As I have previously mentioned, my time management skills or work ethics have been helpful for the team to undertake the tasks in a better way. My nonverbal communication skills also helped in maintaining the communication with the superiors and peers through the nonverbal communication channel. However, the only soft skills where I lacked were presentation skills. Presentation skills help an individual to convey feelings or transfer information about the same (Bradbury, 2006). During the presentations in team work, I received several feedbacks to make improvements in presentation skills such as to learn the soft skills to maintain the body language or a positive attitude with utmost confidence. Through self-assessment I also observed that even though I have good communication skills of the nonverbal channel, I found a lot of inefficiency in verbal communication with the audiences (Lentz, 2013). As many researchers have already explained, for a good presentation, a good verbal communication with the right choice of words always helps in attracting the audience and making them listen to the speaker with interest (Dolan, 2017). The self-assessment has been helpful for me to find out the right areas about the soft skills: good presentation which will help me to develop a better self as a MBA student to become professional about the role and responsibilities.     

Conclusion

At the end of this reflective paper, I can conclude that the DIEP model has been helpful for me to follow the stages in order to reflect about the experiences and skills. Being a business administration student in a Master's degree course, reflection is always helpful for self-development and working on the weaknesses for the better development of the hard and soft skills. Through the reflection model I was able to find out the areas which were my weakness factors: good presentation skills which are a part of important skills. The academic research also helped me to learn about the skills that are important for the master degree student. As for the presentation skills the reflection helped to look into it minutely and find out the areas which can be rectified by an action plan. The action plan that I created at the end of the paper, is useful for self-development so that in future performances in the real professional world.      

References

Boud, D. and Walker, D., 1990. Making the most of experience. Studies in continuing education, 12(2), pp.61-80.

Bradbury, A.J., 2006. Successful presentation skills (Vol. 111). Kogan Page Publishers.

Chang, B., 2019. Reflection in learning. Online Learning, 23(1), pp.95-110.

Choudary, D.V. and Ponnuru, M., 2015. The Importance Of Soft-Skills Training For Mba Students And Managers. Abhinav International Monthly Refereed Journal of Research in, 4(11), pp.6-14.

Dolan, R., 2017. Effective presentation skills. FEMS microbiology letters, 364(24), p.fnx235.

Gray, F.E., 2010. Specific oral communication skills desired in new accountancy graduates. Business communication quarterly, 73(1), pp.40-67.

Lentz, P., 2013. MBA students’ workplace writing: Implications for business writing pedagogy and workplace practice. Business Communication Quarterly, 76(4), pp.474-490.

Luthy, M.R. and Deck, A.B., 2007. Improving presentation skills among business Students. ASBBS E-Journal, 3(1), pp.67-71.

Masduqi, H., 2011. Critical thinking skills and meaning in English language teaching. Teflin Journal, 22(2), pp.185-200.

Mercanlioglu, Ç., 2010. The relationship of time management to academic performance of master level students. International Journal of Business and Management Studies, 2(1), pp.25-36.

Shuayto, N. and Borchers, A., 2001. Skills preparation in MBA programs: The importance of computer related skills. AMCIS 2001 Proceedings, p.6.