Electronic Assignment Cover sheet

Please fill out and attach as the first page of Assignment. Student Number as per your student card: __________1771027___________ _______Varsha Raghav________

Course Title: B.A (Hons) Business & Management

Lecturer Name: Keelin Lee

Module/Subject Title: Communications & Personal Development

Assignment Title: Construct a portfolio to evidence the development of your personal skills throughout this course

No of Words: 3,500

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1. Learning What is learning? Learning is the knowledge acquired through study, experience, or being taught. Learning involves helping people along the learning process, and learning includes all of the things that we do to make it happen. As an end result, we know that learning occurs when people take newfound information and incorporate it into their life. What is your major learning style and what implications does it have for your learning in college? I would consider myself to be a kinaesthetic as well as a visual learner. Although, kinaesthetic is the dominating learning style because I learn and retain new material by fidgeting. Writing and rewriting is the best and effective by which I retain information. To understand what is being taught to me, I need the details to be presented in real life terms. By providing examples of that particular topic so that I can visualize it in an existing and working manner. Granted, college life isnt all about being in the lab 24*7 but when it comes to Information Technology, the lab is where I love being as I cant grasp theory without a mandatory practical. With subjects like Business Organization, Marketing, Economics and Communications. The lecturers incooperates live examples such as the failed organization of the company Enron or the psychology behind price and purchase, to say the least or even the explanation as to what happens to our tax money or being aware of the implication of certain body gestures. As for Math, well, I will always fail to understand it. Describe a learning process that you have experienced. Did it make you feel? Why is it successful/ unsuccessful? The new thing learnt this year is the working of Access and Excel in IT. Both are databases which I think would aid me in the possibility of getting a job in the future if decide to go into IT field. Even in daily life Excel is a great software to organize events or make lists. In high school, I had no IT as a subject so this was a refreshing experience. To add to it, being a kinaesthetic learner it was exactly how I learn best. I practised in the lab, I did numerous worksheets at my own pace without any problem as such. It is, without a doubt, a successful learning process as I scored 100% in both theory and practical. What will you do differently in the future? I will keep on practising it until I get to the stage where databases come naturally and make sure I dont get over-confident about myself and end up scoring less.

2. Time Management What do you mean by time management and why is it necessary? Time management is the art of arranging, organizing and scheduling ones time for the purpose of generating more effective work and productivity as some might argue that time is a limited entity. There are various reasons for why it is necessary. For instance, effective time management makes you realize your priorities and it is necessary that your relationship keeps on blooming or you score that aspiring A+ for the assignment that might just be the key to you first class honors degree. One is more productive hence more impressive and focused on their time on important tasks which might prove to be a valuable commodity. But the golden aspect is the good riddance of STRESS. It implies being happier, healthier and confident and well, who wouldnt want to lead the perfect life? How do you manage your time in college? (SMART goals) College life can prove to be very hectic and a painful experience if you dont have some sort of balance. In terms of assignments one has to be Specific, using the 5 Ws model. The goal should be Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound meaning complying with the deadlines. I lay it out in the format of knowing who asks what of me and so I can meet their needs. Designating mini deadlines such as by the next 3 days, I would have done the introduction of 300 words. As Im aware that the assignment isnt due until a months time and it easily achievable. 300 words for 2 days isnt unrealistic as for writing 5000 words in those 2 days alone. I can be more productive and avoid stress as I have 2,500 words to write within 30 days. Describe a time you have troubles meeting a deadline. What did you do? How did your behaviour affect the situation? In high school, we were given an assignment and had 2 months until hand-in. But there were two days in between where we had to submit drafts and redrafts (this was to ensure that we had some work done and to ensure the highest grade possible by working on our mistakes). I went through a phase where I had trouble focusing and kept on procrastinating for every subject. I hadnt planned nor had the motivation or even intention of starting the assignment even though it held accountable 40% of my entire grade for that particular subject. I missed the first deadline and I kept assuring my teacher that I am, indeed, working on it. Whenever there was a discussion in class of the assignment I used to panic slightly and turned a deaf ear until the end of class. I was fully aware that I was having problems. Until it came to the point where, I began to hate attending that class and thought of taking a leave just so I wouldnt have to face the teacher and think about the assignment. In fact, I did miss 2 days because of those sole reasons and my teacher caught me on, on it. But at the end, he helped me with it and I managed to do well on it. So basically, when I was having troubles meeting a deadline, I constantly kept avoiding and running away from my responsibility. I had a I-couldnt-care-any-less attitude which made things worse for me as I was skipping classes, hiding out in the bathroom, having panic attacks. It was by far one of the worst feelings and situation. What will you do differently in the future? Tabulate 3 SMART goals. In the future, I would not like to spend more than a month on any given assignment regardless of the hypothetical 3-month deadline. Whenever I come across a problem, I would consult my lecturer. More importantly, I would be honest and not keep the lecturer nor myself in the dark. SMART goal: Till April 29th, I will spend 5 hours studying each day; one hour for every 5 of my subjects in order to receive a first class honours degree in year 1.

3. Group work/Teamwork Describe some of the main characteristic of an affective team. In an effective team the main characteristics are, Each member always knows the goal they are working towards so that everyone is on the same page. The group has a clear, explicit, and mutually agreed-upon approach: mechanics, norms, expectations and rules. Each individual is respectful towards the common goal. The likes of arriving on time, coming to meetings prepared, completing agreed upon tasks on time, when action is taken, clears assignments are made (who-what-when) and willingly accepted and completed by each group member. There is a lot of discussion in which virtually everyone participates. Every idea is given a hearing. Members should not be shy from voicing their opinions or working in the fear of being laughed upon providing an idea. People are free in expressing their feelings as well as their ideas. No one member should feel uncomfortable due to any reason whatsoever. For the project to come together, the members of the groups themselves should behave like friends/family to produce top quality work. The leadership of the group shifts from time to time. Even thought, the issue is not who controls, but how to get the job done there has to be no dictatorship. Describe a team role you have taken on in college or in work. For the communications audit, I was a bit of a Finisher as I consider myself to be a perfectionist who wants to get it right as to see the project is completed thoroughly. Im the worst kind of perfectionist who goes to the exterems of doting the Is and crosses the Ts and am conscientious and anxious. I was worrying too much about seemingly trival things like having no errors or omissions and paid attention to the smallest of details. We were concerned with deadlines and I pushed my team members to make sure the job is completed on time. How do you think your role added value to the group task? What worked? What didnt? My role as a finisher entitled me to bring the different bits and pieces of the audit together (ultimately allowing me to have the last say as that is how I like it). The fact that different jobs were allotted and my team members only had to focus on the quality of the information gathered and presented enabled them to work to the best of their abilities and leaving the trivial techniques to me. On the other hand, what didnt work was that I lost focus of my part of the audit as my emphasis was on the layout and presentation. How would you ensure more effective group work next time? For a next group assignment, I would make sure that initially, our group work together. This permits to build a strong cooperative environment and trust to tackle any problem that might arise at the beginning itself. Later on, have set dates to come in and share our work and put it together in a manner that satisfies everyone.

4. Non-Verbal Communication What is non-verbal communication? Nonverbal communication is behaviour, other than spoken or written correspondence, what creates or represents meaning. It included deciphering body language, using gestures and knowing facing expressions. Describe the effects of non-verbal communication that you have witnessed in college or in work. Taking Marketing as an example, our lecturer has outright told us to have our current notes on us during her class. In fact, she makes sure that we have it with us otherwise we are kicked out of class. Whenever someone has not the notes with them, I have noticed panic stamped across their faces. Expanding on that, when she is faced with a student without their notes, she just gestures for them to leave the class. Describe how the above non-verbal communication process made you feel. What was the outcome? Did it help or hinder the communication process? How do you know? The above scenario has made me a little scared of our professor; she stands by what she says even at the cost of a student missing her class when theyre in the college building. Ironically enough, the outcome is rather positive as I never forget to miss my notes now and in turn I can concentrate more and take notes accordingly on my topic notes. It has helped in the communication process because I dont miss a thing to be taken down now and I listen to her attentively as I dont want to be thrown under the bus and face humiliation. How will you use non-verbal communication differently in the future? In the future, I would like to take better control of my body language and facial expressions. I tend to openly display emotions such as shock, disgust, sadness or extreme happiness. Willingly or unwillingly, knowingly or unknowingly, I might offend someone unintentionally. Being in an environment full of diversities; different nationalities from all over the world I need to be more cautious of my nonverbal communication to avoid problems.

5. Presentation Skills Did your Communications presentation go as planned? If so, what is your evidence of this? If not, why not? For the communications presentation, we had planned a fluent, using transitional sentences with each changing person, syncing slides with the material being spoken about. When it was my turn to present my part of the report, I stuttered a lot. At one point I completely froze and had to apologize and start again. In haste, one of palm card became out of order while practising and during the actual presentation, what I was saying did not match with the picture on the screen. This happened because I have stage fright and regardless of my 20 times practise before a mirror, before my mom, with my team, I still managed to let my nerves get the best of me. What was good about your presentation? My presentation was easy to follow as I limited myself to a picture per side or a pie chart when necessary. I had almost none to one words per sides. This was so because it allowed full concentration of my audience on me instead of being distracted in an attempt to read the big text on the screen. In all honesty, the overall presentation went better than what I had thought and better than the practise ones. My partners managed to maintain the quality of the presentation by doing their parts extremely well, which I like to believe made up for my mess up. I was satisfied if not extremely happy. It was an experience nonetheless. What do you want to improve about your presentation style? How? The major improvement would be to Be organized, having all my materials in the right order and ready to present. Visualize being confident and focus on relaxing so I dont get a stage fright or freeze midway. Be aware of my body language by moving with purpose but not aimlessly around the stage. Moving around to engage and interact with my audience so they dont fall asleep. Speak loudly and clearly projecting my voice while facing my audience when speaking. Varying the pitch and speed of my voice for emphasis and effect. Also, pausing when appropriate. Using gestures and facial expressions to help explain, emphasize, and communicate to add a bit of sassiness to retain the audiences attention through, till the end. What did you learn about yourself from this experience? I learnt that I am not as confident when I am in front of people, or a person, speaking to them and having their eyes on me. I still get stage frights. Although I also noticed that with practise, I did better than what I had done in the past.

6. The Job Search Describe the difference between employment and employability Employment is about getting a job whereas employability is about having an effective mix of skills, attributes and attitudes to function successfully in required roles. Think about the new skills you have developed in this course so far. What strengths have you discovered which you did not know you had. The first new skill that comes to my mind is cultivating a CV. I had neither idea nor knowledge whatsoever about CVs until I came to college. I tried writing my first CV and it was very difficult to think of all or even some of my achievements. As I got comfortable and tried focusing on the activities I partook I came to grips that I can make something out of nothing. I can sell myself even though I have no real work experience. How I came to this conclusion is because I sent 3 CVs out to organizations looking for part time jobs and I was called in for 2 interviews. I was welcomed to the real world outside of college but I declined. Describe your career goals for the future. How will you achieve these? My preferred field of career is the IT sector and I aspire to work in a multinational company. Throughout my college life so far, I have found out that I have an aptitude for computers and my current strongest subjects are IT and economics. I had interest in economics when I was studying it in high school but over the past couple months, I have developed a great amount of interest for computer studies. I would ensure small steps such as keeping up my Grade Point Average especially in IT, majoring in Information Systems. I shall spend my spare time learning about new softwares that are foreign to me to widen my knowledge in this particular field. Later on, in second year, I would try to secure an internship with a technological firm to give me a boost for when I graduate. If there are seminars taking place, I would attend them. All this would ultimately help in giving weight to my CV, which would be impressive by the time I graduate with first class honours.

Varsha Raghav
113 The Sweepstakes, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, Dublin. Mobile: +353 089 9630508 +353 087 7063300 Email: varsha768@hotmail.com

Objective:
To obtain a position where I can maximize my management skills, quality assurance, program development, and training experience. As well as, enabling myself to use my strong organizational skills, educational background, and ability to work well with people. I am available for immediate start.

Education:
2012 - Current Dublin Business School, Dublin Undergraduate of B.A (Hons) Business Information System with Cloud Computing (Semester one: 85% ; Final results 80% Passed with First Class Honors) 2009 2012 Beijing BISS International School, Beijing International Baccalaureate Diploma Program (IBDP) (Marks awarded: 32/45 points) D.A.V. Public School, New Delhi Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) (Marks awarded: 75%)

2005 2009

Achievements:
25/7 February 2011 Flat Classroom Leadership Summit Beijing BISS International School

Duties:

Developed skills with Web 2.0 tools and multimedia Interacted in a collaborative learning environment with the Student Summit Participated in learning from other conferences, both virtual and real Developed a curriculum idea including digital storytelling, film and multimedia, instructional design, digital citizenship. Presented a 2-minute pitch to an international audience, both virtual and real

16 August 2011

IBM Global Entrepreneur Finalist British School of Beijing, Beijing

Duties: A group of 2 people including me came up with FlashCans for IB subjects

Competed within school from 12th and 11th grade to quality to go to BSB Presented our tangible product in front of fellow opponents and real investors Made effective Posters and PowerPoint presentation with cash flow, projected revenue, breakeven time, benefits and attractive target base for our product

2009 - 2012

Vice captain and Captain of the Winning Yellow House Beijing BISS International School

Duties:

Arrange house meetings Conducting the meetings in a creative and fun manner Participating in games and events and motivating people to partake Keeping the house informed of events and scores

2009 2012

Writer and Editor of school newspaper (BISSKIT) Beijing BISS International School

Duties:

Being punctual to meetings Deciding on the months issue topic Developing the format layout of the newspaper using Mac Keynotes Pinning the distributing copies to each homeroom

Computer Skills:
Skilled user of MS Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access) User of Macintosh and familiar with the format of a Windows PC Skilled user of Adobe (Photoshop, Dreamweaver) Programmer (Java), web designer (HTML5 and CSS3)

Hobbies:
I am a leader; in college I am leading various projects. In high school, I have participated in the school training of volleyball and I am a good badminton player. I love reading novels and am interested in war poetry because of literature class.

Volunteer works:
I have volunteered going to Abba House, which is an orphanage, carrying them presents and taking them out for meals despite not knowing Mandarin. I was a member of Helping Hands in school, which was a community and service group. Raising donations for orphans, spreading awareness within the community.

References:
References available on request.

7. Self-Reflection What new skills and attributes have you gained from your studies so far?

I have definitely come to accept the importance of time and time management. I have been on top of things from the beginning, giving me less stress. I have learnt how to work with certain softwares. I have learnt the psychology behind marketing and all the elements that come together to manipulate people into buying or accepting certain facts. I have learnt to present a business plan for potential investors, in case some time in the future I decide to open my own firm. I have learnt the reason of failure or success behind certain economies. And how to curb economical problems such as inflation or unemployment using my vast knowledge if I happen to become a economist where the country depends on my advice. And last but not the least, I have learnt how to weigh investments options and make the smart decision to invest where I get more money back from banks using mathematical calculations (with a calculator). What further improvements are needed i.e. essay writing, presentation skills, project work, taking notes etc.? Areas where I still lack are presentations skills. I need to overcome my anxiety being before people and publically speaking. Only I can help myself to overcome this issue and I intend on doing this by practicing speaking before a mirror to myself as if I were giving a speech. In the near future if I have to present again, I would practise, not for hours, but for at least a day to ensure full confidence. The other area of interest is working in groups. Whenever I work in a group, I tend to dominate the project and can become unwilling to new ideas. This is so because I am a perfectionist and I need everything to be my way. When I dont like someone in the group, I make minimal effort to befriend them or even being nice to them for that matter. I want to overcome tis issue by learning to be more tolerant and open-minded. Putting myself in their shoes and noting the way I behave is not just or acceptable for a group member. I need to be kinder to my group members to ensure the best quality of results produced.

REFLECTIVE LOG Date:

8 October 2012
th

Activity undertaken:
Conduct a communications audit to examine and investigate the quality of communications within a firm. (Report and presentation)

Reflection of learning experience:

I paired with my friend for this report and presentation. The other team member I did not like for no apparent reason. Keeping that in mind the dynamic of the group I think we worked tremendously to product the highest quality of work. I was not the leader of this group but I can openly admit that our leader had no opinion; neither did he allot any specific segments to any member of this group. I got help on my public speaking skills from my friend and she gave me few tips and helped me out whenever I got stuck with it. I had not really seen what the others were doing but when I got the material at the end, it was impressive and the final report looked nice. As for the presentation, I picked the slides and suggested no more than 3 words per slide and my group members took that into consideration and that made me happy.

Future actions:
To conduct more meetings to exchange ideas and share problems, overcoming them to create a better working environment. Enabling to overcome an intellectual hurdle with the help of others suggestions. Practise, practise and more practises for the presentation. I would also like to do something more animated and creative with the visual aid such as PowerPoint or use posters or even hand-outs when necessary.

Date:
4 October 2012
th

Activity undertaken:
All changed, changed utterly for Irish consumers. (Research Report)

Reflection of learning experience:

This was a painful experience as my group had fallen apart. Half the group was not showing up and when they did show up, they had no work done. I decided to kick them out of the team and I did too but Niamh told me off and put them back with me. That was awkward, to be honest. We had issues getting work on time or even deciding on anything because no one seemed to have any opinion or interest. I had zero tolerance left and I pestered others with their part and bossed them around in a way. We eventually got the work done at the last moment but it was just of satisfactory quality.

Future actions:
Avoid working with people I dont know. Even if I do, I would try to be a better leader and set some ground rules at the very beginning of the report drawing out the consequences. More importantly, being friendly and creating a working and tension free environment. Dealing with issues like a grown up and keep the motivation up to achieve the common goal.