Assessment Brief/ Task

The detailed requirements for this task are as follows:

This assessment requires you to write an essay of up to 1800 words summarising your personal reflections and giving examples of your learning in relation to your SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats analysis) and your PDP (personal development plan) using supporting audit material used in class (which should be attached to the end of your essay, when submitted).

To pass this assessment, you need to submit more than just the essay.

With your essay, you must submit a detailed, well justified SWOT analysis, which is supported by all the self-audit materials used inside and outside of the classroom in relation to your employability skills. From this, you then need to develop a PDP relevant to your first year study at University, using resources discussed in class and from your own reading.

For this PDP, you must select at least THREE employability skills to develop (e.g. time management, presentation skills, problem solving etc) related to the findings in your SWOT. Helpful hint: You need to show the relationship between your SWOT and your PDP i.e. if presentation skills are a W (weakness) on your SWOT, then that needs to be a key skill to address in your PDP.

Within your PDP, you need to set yourself SMART (i.e. specific, measurable, achievable, realistically resourced and timely) objectives within your PDP, showing how you will develop these skills over this and the next semester. Helpful hint: if you are going to develop your presentation skills, then what actions are you going to take? Maybe attend a skills session in the University Library? Maybe read a book/watch a video? Get help from friends? Practice in class? Review the feedback from presentations in other modules etc? You will need at least 5 actions for each of the 3 skills.

You must also list the books, journals, websites etc that you have used to inform your SWOT and PDP discussions in your essay, using Harvard Referencing. You must include some theory (i.e concepts discussed in class and that you have read) to support what you are saying in your essay (and you must list your references at the end of the essay.) Helpful hint: if you are talking about presentation skills, what have you read that helps you improve these? Have you discovered the 6 P's of presentations, the 8 C's of communication skills etc? Once you have read these, now you need to apply them to your reflections in your essay.