Monthly Archives: February 2020

How my first Winter Assessment at university was critical to my professional development.

Being first year at university, the first semester was split in half between my academic responsibilities of attending classes and completing assignments and my social life, whether that be with the rugby team or forming new friendship groups. The cycle of trying to balance both of these aspects continued until mid November when assessments for both my Values and Working Together Modules began to loom. Like my A-Level Examinations, I applied more effort to my Academic responsibilities whilst saving my social life for the weekends. When these assessments came about however the Values: Self, Society and the Professions took up most of my time. This assessment made me realize how valuable a broad range of literature is in helping develop arguments cohesively whilst also providing depth. This has made me reflect on how I might better conduct myself during the second semester, with me now beginning to  read outside of just the required reading in order to inform my viewpoints and practice in an academic and school setting. This has occurred as a result of me receiving a C1 for this assessment as one of the main critiques of my essay was whilst making my viewpoints and statements clear, I did not provide enough insight into these points which a wider array of reading surely would have benefited. The process of reflection isn’t merely an afterthought of wishing you had done something better, but is something that should be pondered and analysed in order to influence future elements in our academic lives and put into practice these changes. Reflection should be carried out after most tasks as nothing we ever do will be truly perfect, and reflection upon this will lead to a betterment of all aspects that are reflected upon, be it essays, professional practice or even everyday life, which leads to us benefiting not only ourselves but also the societies we live in.