Reflecting on your learning at uni: How to recognise your skills development

By Katrina Gardner , Careers & Employability Manager

Throughout your time at university, you’ll be developing a wide range of skills that will be crucial for your academic and professional success.

Gaining subject-specific skills and knowledge might be often more immediately obvious. Simultaneously, you’ll also be developing a range of professional skills, although this development can be harder to quantify.

Developing professional skills is a big part of what makes you so appealing to recruiters when applying to internships and graduate roles, so it’s really beneficial for you to recognise your full range of skills.

How to find out what professional skills you can develop on your programme

If your programme is accredited by a professional body, they’ll list all disciplinary and progressional skills that you should develop at university. There’s also a QAA Benchmark Statement for each degree subject which many UofG Schools use to ensure comprehensive skills development from Level 1 onwards.

If you can’t remember reading these, you might want to ask your lecturers if they use a skills framework. This’ll probably explain which skills will be developed at different levels and how (eg lectures, tutorials, groupwork, fieldwork, labs, etc).?

How to know if you are making progress

There are a few practical tactics to track your progress when it comes to skills development.

Set learning goals

Be realistic about what you want and can accomplish. This is a balance of not pushing yourself too much and not letting imposter syndrome stop you from recognising your learning potential. Consider setting goals to fill in obvious knowledge and skills gaps but also to increase your confidence in areas where you lack this.

Log and reflect

It’s important that you record all learning activities (big and small) before you forget any of them, so try to do this at least every month (more regularly is better). Could you set aside half an hour each week or an hour every two weeks for this purpose?

Reflecting soon after an activity is useful to capture all your immediate thoughts and feelings on your performance. However, sometimes, we don't immediately recognise our achievements, so it’s useful to revisit after some time has passed, perhaps reflecting on activities in the previous semester as that time distance can aid in recognising advances in your learning.

It is also helpful to reflect both on your mistakes and successes as you can learn lots from both.

Seek feedback

Build a support network you can tap into for constructive feedback. This could be by studying with other students in the JMS or setting up regular study groups.

You can also get support from university staff, including teaching staff you as well as our Careers Advisors and Peer Career Supporters that offer one-to-one and group sessions.

Test your knowledge and skills

Think about how to test your knowledge and skills. For example, are there short exercises you can use to assess your ability levels?

You can track your progress by comparing performance in two different stages of learning (eg last year of secondary school compared to second semester of first year at university).

Take a flexible approach

Things don't always go smoothly, so you may often need to reassess your approach to learning. This may also increase your understanding of your preferred learning needs and style, leading you to make changes so that your learning journey is more enjoyable, comfortable and effective.

How to plug skills gaps

You may identify skills that you’re missing or need further development. You can upskills through various opportunities within the curriculum (eg industry projects and study abroad) and beyond.

Extracurricular activities

The many activities open to you on campus include student clubs and societies, student radio, student newspaper, sports and class and SRC reps and more. Engaging in any of these can help you build essential skills like teamwork, organisation, time management, communication and more.

Extracurricular activities away from campus could include bootcamps, hackathons and robotics teams. There are also loads of business competitions open to students of all disciplines which you can learn about through the Student Enterprise Team.

Work experience

Any type of work experience can be valuable to your skills development (and allow you to test out different career ideas).

You could consider applying for internships through UofG’s Student Opportunities Hub or another platform. The Hub advertises on- and off-campus internships including research ones within Schools and industry ones in different areas.

Volunteering is also a valuable workplace opportunity for skills development. The SRC or Volunteer Glasgow offer a vast array of voluntary opportunities.

Online courses

You can upskill from the comfort of your own home (even bed).

As a UofG student, you have free access to LinkedIn Learning, a library of thousands of video courses in three key areas: technology, business and creative. Our team has a Collection of recommended courses, including ones on finding jobs.

Other resources

LinkedIn Learning: Access thousands of free online video courses to further your knowledge and skills

Student Opportunities Hub: Browse a wide range of part-time jobs and internships, both on campus and local

Peer Career Support Team website: Check how our team of 18 student Peer Career Supporters can help you and where to find them for advice on job interviews (and much more)