First entry on Getting started on skills development and the Warwick Skills Portfolio

Workshop Tutor: Amanda Randall

Introduction

"What is Reflection?"

Well, that’s an interesting question.

In order to appreciate that perspective, just throw your mind back to your past experiences. I myself never had the time to ask myself about the things I had done in the past, but I did draw a portrait of me looking at my relfection in a still and a clear lake wondering of all the things I had done in the past and to think about them deeply and to inflict on the emotions and to learn and derive something useful from it for future purposes.

Western culture is materialistic, very fast and anxiety proned. Technology is intended to make our lives easier, but every good has some bad associated with it. Today, we complaint of decline in concentration, we expect faster results, we rely on multiple information sources rather than one, etc. Well in such a fast paced life did we ever get the time to stand by a lake and ask yourself whether our past incidents should be taken into account while bracing ourselves for tomorrow?

Well last week I had attended an unusually interesting workshop, something of a kind which I had never ever even thought of attending before. To put it simply, it’s one of the workshops aimed for acquiring the Warwick Skills Portfolio Award (WSPA). It indeed lets you know and understand yourself better.

Well the WSPA has a range of personal and academic skills to choose from and to benefit each and every individual registering for the programme. To begin with, all the students were seated in groups of four. It is worth noting that after Ms. Amanda Randall gave her introductory speech, we were asked to initiate and talk amongst our own groups to know our group members better and on top of it all after getting to know your group members we actually had to introduce our group members except ourselves to everyone present at the workshop and it was fun. For the first time in my life I was introducing someone else to the audience and it was fun having the responsibility of portraying someone else’s life and achievements to the crowd. It is worth noting that activities like these help to improve your abilities and skills multifold and on the other hand making you more confident and sure while dealing with people from all walks of life.

Furthermore, we had questionnaires to help discover our learning style preferences and indeed the results were true and depicted me the way i am in day to day life.

To conclude, it is difficult to portray yourselves into the mind of another person through writing, but guys trust me this is a once in a lifetime opportunity and its highly worth it.

Actions

1. Improve my leadership skills by motivating others in a team to achieve common objectives.

2. Self promote myself by speaking wherever appropriate and be in charge of the situation.

3. Planning and prioritising things and thus saving much of my valuable time.

4. Improve my academic skills further

To write a follow up, go to http://go.warwick.ac.uk/skills//blog

Fahad Shaikh : 08 Oct 2013 18:45 |  Tags: Actions P1 Portfolio Wspa |  Comments (1) |  Report a problem