Words: 609
In my personal statement my short-term goals were to pass all of the first year modules with at least 75 percent. Since starting university these goals have changed as I have become more familiar with the marking scheme. I now wish to pass all first year modules with a 2. 1 and so far I have succeeded in doing so. I also wanted to join the psychology Society at Staffordshire University and register with the BPS however I have not yet achieved this and hope to complete this task by the end of the academic year.
Another of my targets was to meet lots of people with similar interests to myself. Since started university I have definitely completed this target as I have made lots of friends both on my course and in my accommodation. One aim I am going to set myself is to become more organised when it comes to assignments because my time keeping skills have not been as good as I would like which meant that I left some assignments to the last minute. I will achieve this by keeping a diary with the course deadlines clearly noted down and I will try to complete every assignment as soon as possible after it is set.
The group work involved in some modules has improved my communication and team work skills. I was required to interact with people and produce a piece of work in a certain period of time which also developed my organisation and time keeping skills. This was achieved by attending set meetings outside the seminars and completing the allocated tasks for specific deadlines. This was one way that I completed my target to meet lots of new people as I was required to work with people that I had never met before. The practical session on the Crime scene investigation module helped me to put my academic knowledge in to practice.
This was acheived by working in the laboratory and following the set instructions provided thus developing my practical skills which were never my strongest point. The library and IT workshops that I have attended have increased my ability to use the library which is not something I was very certain of before attending the workshop. On completion of the modules i am now more self sufficient and my motivation skills have helped me to become a more independent learner and work by myself without guidance. I developed my IT skills during the research methods of seminar by putting the knowledge that I gained in my lectures into practice on SPSS.
I am now a lot more efficient at using statistics to produce graphs on SPSS and have used these skills to compete my research methods report. Tutors have commented that the structure of my work can be improved. I will try to improve this by planning my assignments out beforehand in order to produce a more fluent piece of work. Books have also illustrated that there is much more depth involved in the modules than is provided by the lecture notes and thus extra reading helps to give you a greater depth of knowledge and understanding in order to make sense of the lecture notes and to expand on this material in assignments.
In future I will continue to use books and other resources to develop my knowledge and understanding for examinations and assignments in order to achieve my full potential. Employers have commented on my poor punctuality early on Saturday mornings. I will use this feedback to improve in the future by going to bed earlier on Friday nights and getting up earlier on Saturday mornings to ensure I catch the early bus.