After completing Activity 1 and 2 I feel I have a better understanding of my strengths and the areas I need to work on. The completed activities can be found in my  Personal audit and transferable skills page located along the top of the blog.

The discussion task ‘What would you say are the most important skills/attributes/qualities we need to develop for successful academic study, and why?’  helped me realise the different ways in which I can use my skills.

Here is what I wrote…

Setting personal goals: I believe this is key to academic study. By setting your own goals you are able to deal with a large amount of tasks in a more organised approach and become motivated to achieve them to a high standard. It also helps you keep good time for example when working towards an assignment submission.

Building social networks: I see this as a useful tool in academic study as it allows you to learn out with your lectures. By making friends and talking with others on your course you are able to share knowledge and opinions on subjects. This skill is also useful when working within groups during your academic study.

Take notes: This is an important skill during academic study at university. Not only does taking notes give you the opportunity to refer back to a subject area it also helps you retain the information more  than just listening does. There are also many useful pieces of information said during a lecture that are not on the Power Point Slides. Having the ability to listen for this and take notes will widen your knowledge.

Evaluate information: In assignments or any piece of academic writing it is not enough to simply state knowledge you must be able to evaluate this to gain higher marks. For example demonstrating how the information/ knowledge is useful or relevant to the question.

Participate in discussions: I believe this final skill is key to successful academic study as it allows you to broaden your knowledge. By participating in discussions you are able to get others view points on your opinions and this can be very useful to use in your writing. Contributing in discussions will also help to consolidate your learning on the subject. If you are able to discuss it this shows your understand it.

Overall I feel this task has been very useful and I know I will refer back to it throughout my academic study.