Analysis of One's Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats - Personal Statement Example

Personal Development Portfolio Name Course Name Tutor University Date According to my personal development plan, I have made variouse initiatives that will ensure I achieve my academic goals in order to attain good grades and also in my professional life. In my plan, I have reflected on the things that I should do in order for me to put more energy in the processes that will see me through my own learning, academic performance and achieve the epitome of my educational, social and career development. This is because since I made a plan, I have seen great improvements that have taken my career to greater heights. For example, I have realized that I am able to turn in assignments at the right time. There is little doubt from me that my work is full of originality that it deserves. One of the areas that I have realized to be of vital importance in the attainment of my academic degree lies on the issue of working as a team and being able to accommodate more ideas from other people rather than keeping to myself all the time (TURNER, Kathy et al., 2012). In order for me to be better at my academic performance, I must accept the idea that academics is not only about being able to repeat or rather re-write whatever I have been taught in class by my tutors. Academic performance also means that I have to be able to understand the course, this is very important because what I grasp will be able to make me perform well professionally. Academic skills that I get should also be able to reflect in my professional life. For this reason, I do not agree with the idea that people go to for higher education just to be able to pass exams, rather to also learn social and professional skills. For one to better in academic skills, one needs to develop among other abilities, to do great research work in one’s field of study. I must be able to undergo a lot of experiments and practical sessions so that I can sharpen skills in order to improve on my academic performance. The other important lessons in attaining great academic performance will involve proper time management. This is one of the vital points in enabling one to achieve academic and professional goals. Time management includes other social aspects of life. In my personal plan I realize that with great time management, I am able to have time for studying in order to improve on my academic grade as well as being able to have time to socialize and attend to other co-curricular activities like sport (BRESCIANI, Marilee J. and Wolff, Ralph A., 2006). When it comes to the issue of academic skills, I am currently working on increasing my grades from a B+. One of the reasons that have seen this coming through is because I did a SWOT analysis of myself (BENSOUASSAN, Babette E. and Fleisher, Grail L., 2012). This helped me to recognize my strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to my academic life. With this in mind I have been able to work out a perfect plan. One of the areas of focus is find a way in which I am able to perfect my strengths, be able to correct and improve on my weak areas in order to make them one of my strong points. At this I should be able to utilize the opportunity of excelling well in my favourite subjects in order to achieve better grades than other students, by doing so I will be able to overcome the threats that are usually posed by the SWOT analysis. From the analysis, I realize that I perform better and produce good academic materials when I am working under strict deadlines. This is because I am able to prioritize my work for assignments that are made to be completed at the moment more than those that take ages to be submitted. On strict deadlines I am able to organize my plan of work, I am able to carry out my research, attend my normal classes and also do my normal studies as I complete my academic assignments at the right time. All this said, I also realize have some weaknesses, which really affects my academic skills and performance. One of the weaknesses is that I am not a good team player. I am very choosy when it comes to the people I relate with in class, the same attitude has also played in the way I judge my teachers and fellow class mates. This makes me develop an attitude of doing my own research even if it is meant to be a team effort. This kind of aloofness has also been reflected in the social arena. I do not like sports and I am a poor cheer leader even in the sport that would find me in the field. Rather, I would spend much of my free time watching a movie series or playing games in my laptop while other people spend time mingling and getting to know each other. This is wrong because people have ideas, and it is only through socializing that I can be able to open my mind to other possibilities. That is why it this reflection I have realized the importance of having a time table that would ensure I have allocated time for everything including watching American football which is one of the sport that I find a bit more interesting than others (TURNER, Kathy et al., 2012). One of the other things that I have decided to do with this reflection is to be able to set time for team discussion with other students. I have to sign myself into the breakfast club in order to enjoy the academic discussion that is conducted every morning at our library. It is indeed true that one of the major reasons for group research work is in order for the students to learn teamwork. It is a university principle that should be followed to the letter. Team work is also important because it helps a student to realize his strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. By doing this, a student is also able to learn how to improve in is weaknesses, how to fight off threats and be able to build on strengths and opportunities. These are things that I should have put in mind long time ago; they are now a great priority in my personal reflection at the moment. With the analysis of my academic skills, I also realized that there were some threats in my academic performance. One of the major threats is that sooner or later I would find myself studying and having to do everything by myself for the basic reason of showing no interest in what other people were doing. My weak approach to my fellow students, especially during team assignments was really going to affect my academic performance at the end of the day. Lack of teamwork in academics eventually results to failure. I will also have to reduce the time that I have allocated in doing what is fun. For example, I have to cut down in watching a lot of cable TV, movie series and playing video games in my computer. I also need to involve myself so much in doing physical exercises as it helps in making my skin breathe and also exploring my mind to other new things. (TURNER, Kathy et al., 2012) My relationship with other people, including my tutors and students is very important in nurturing academic skills. I should develop a continuous habit of relating well with the people around me and especially students and tutors from my department. I need to also involve myself highly in academic discussion groups. This is because it is only during these discussions that we find students expressing their feelings and also learning to translate and apply what they have been taught by their lecturer or tutor. I should also learn to do what I like than sitting down and thinking about it. For example, since I love American football, I should exercise a lot and ensure that I have been put in the university team. I need to also join various social groups and academic groups that are available in my university. These social groups are of vital importance in the attainment of my degree and should be nurtured to reflect my relationship with people and also my feelings towards academics. During my personal reflection, I came to realize that academic skills and performance calls on the individual to be able to coordinate his personal efforts as well as team efforts. No one is able to excel in academic or professional life while doing things aloof. This is true because student in most universities and other higher learning institutions are said to always improve in their grades or school when they learn to work together as a team, failure to do this results in poor grades at the end of an academic semester. It is thus important that I participate in a lot of activities that involve my fellow classmates; I should be able to work in groups and challenge my fellow students on various academic questions and problems. Working as a team also enables me to attain courage that is important during research work on important topics. Team work will also enable me gain confidence and courage to stand in front of people while presenting it (BRESCIANI, Marilee J. and Wolff, Ralph A., 2006). In addition, my professional life will be affected positively as I will be able to approach client which any form of social or economic background. I will also learn the skills to make difficult decisions and also how to solve issues as a team. Team effort is always a great skill in academic and professional life. For a scholar like me, I feel confident enough to express my ideas and ideologies to many people more than I could have been able to do in the past. Looking at this, I now realize that I need to improve on a number of areas in relation to my academics and other professional and social activities. I need to put more energy to achieve a lot in education, social and professional life. I need to improve in my communication skills. This will enable be move my target goal from a B+ to a straight A. I now understand my internal strengths and weaknesses as far as my academic performance is concerned. One of my greatest strengths in academic skills is that I have the ability to correct my past academic mistakes for the better. I am also able to improve on my weaknesses by learning to work with other people as a team. In order to do this, I should not at any point ignore any form of weakness in me. I must strive to understand my weakness and ensure that I use my strength to counter this. I should continue learning from other peoples weaknesses and also my day to day life experiences at the university. Apart from the fact that I have weakness in socializing, I am also able to identify any form of learning opportunity in my university, this is important as it will enable me to use it to improve on my knowledge, academic skills and social abilities. One of my major weaknesses is the ability to pull people to work with me. I happen to be a perfectionist and this keeps pulling people away from my group discussions. I addition, I am a poor communicator especially when it comes to my tutors; this is a weakness that has always lead me fighting academic problems by myself. I need to find ways in which I can be able to approach my tutors any time I am in need (BENSOUASSAN, Babette E. and Fleisher, Grail L., 2012). I should write down a suggestion and share with them to see if it can work for both of us. The other area that I should improve on is learning to fight of power playing my fellow student during discussions. I should learn to listen to other students in order for them to also share what they feel during an academic discussion. I should also find time to relax my mind as the human body cannot consume much when it is tired; I need to join the school football team and make sure that I exercise daily. My personal development plan is highly dependent on this. I must find skills to fight off all my weak point since this is of great importance to my education and my career. This plan that involves any analysis of my strength, weakness, opportunities and threats has enabled be see a great progress in my academic performance. In addition, I should explore any opportunity that the university offers, including academic seminars, benchmarking and exetera as this will enable improve in my performance. I need to also be aware of the external factors that tend to affect my academic skills in one way or the other. I should keep in mind that other student has a personal development plan and in their own way they are comparing their plan with mine. I need to learn more from what they have put down in order to improve on my part. This means that in order to ensure that I maintain a high academic performance at all times, I should be able to work with other students and not against them. References BENSOUASSAN, Babette E. and Grail L. FLEISHER. 2012. Analysis Without Paralysis: 12 Tools to Make Better Strategic Decisions (2nd Edition). FT Press; 2 edition. BRESCIANI, Marilee J. and Ralph A. WOLFF. 2006. Outcomes-Based Academic and Co-Curricular Program Review: A Compilation of Institutional Good Practices. Stylus Publishing. TURNER, Kathy, Brenda KRENUS, Lynette IRELAND, and Leigh POINTON. 2012. Essential Academic Skills 2e. Oxford University Press, USA; 2 edition. Read More