Continuing Academic Success Essay

How Goal Setting Leads to Success

Moreover, I believe that setting goals gives one ‘laser focus’: It enables a person to focus his/her attention towards a single point. In this case, goal setting reduces misuse of resources such as time through priority setting. This aspect of goal setting also acts as a channel that directs and guides the use of resources meant to achieve a specific desire. During this course, I have also learnt that apart from ensuring responsibility, goal setting also promotes personal accountability. That is, it creates a sense of obligation, thus reducing instances of failure that may occur when a person keeps taking of his desires rather than taking appropriate actions (Smith, 2013).
Another important lesson in relation to the importance of goal setting is that it ensures that a person achieves his highest potential. It makes a person achieves his best desired results. By setting academic and career goals, a person is in a position to set targets that he/she strives to achieve. This makes them give out their best performances, hence achieving the best desired results.

How Writing Process can help Me Advance in My Education and Career

Writing process is a crucial component of career and academic success (Wallwork, 2013). It has been associated with various benefits that assist a person to achieve his desired career goals. There are various aspects of writing in academic process for instance: Writing dissertations, personal statements, research proposals among others (Wallwork, 2013). I believe that such writing process have a significant positive effect in advancement of my career. To begin with, I believe that writing process will assist in advancing my career through improving my creative and critical thinking skills. This will basically occur in the sense that writing process provides me with a platform to record and present new ideas that can help advance my career.
Additionally, writing process is crucial in my career advancement due to the fact that it improves my capacity to present my ideas through writing. That is, it enhances my communication skills through written information. Similarly, I believe that writing in my education creates a platform for improving personal creativity and critical thinking. That is, it provides me with an opportunity to express new ideas and skills. It also acts as an important channel for communication between my Lecturers and I as well as with other students and colleagues.

How Information from Ethical Lens can help me Make Better Decisions

I believe that information from the ethical lens plays a crucial role in personal decision making processes. Through this lens, one can identify values that have significant effect on their choices and understand values that are crucial to other parties (www.ethicsgame.com). In this regard, I believe that the ethical lens minimizes my chances of engaging into conflicts by making better ethical decisions.

Steps that I will Use to Improve Critical Thinking Skills

In order to improve my critical thinking skills, I will apply a six-step approach as indicated below:
Gathering of all the Information I need
Before making a decision on the courses of action I need, I will ensure that I explore various sources of information i.e. secondary and primary to enhance my understanding of the problems faced.

Evaluation of the Sources of Information

In this step, I will ensure that I evaluate the credibility, validity, relevance and accuracy of the sources of information I use in relation to the issue under concern.

Being Open-Minded and Flexible to Alternatives

Here, I will consider all aspects/sides of an issue I am facing and evaluate all existing alternatives. I will also consider other relevant sources of information that may enhance my capacity to solve the issue.

Ensuring that I Understand all Concepts Available

In case that I am faced with challenges of understanding all the concepts presented, I will ensure that I make consultations and ask questions in regard to challenging concepts.

Making Connections and Thinking Ahead

In this step, I will incorporate new ideas and information into what I have already learnt and use this information to plan of future courses of action

Application and Feedback

This is the final step; I will apply all the relevant ideas gathered and make improvement from the feedback.
The University has a wide range of resources. I will use documented academic and non-academic materials to enhance my understanding of relevant issues. These materials are inclusive of; books, journals, newspapers, novels, among others. I will also use electronic sources of information from the university library to undertaken online research. There are also lecturers and professors with various background of academic knowledge, I will make consultations and seek advice from the lecturers and professors to ensure that I understand any challenging academic issue.

Benefits and Challenges of Using Outside Sources

The use of outside sources to acquire more information is important owing to the fact that it broadens my understanding of issues by exposing me to a wide perspective of knowledge and information. Additionally, the use of outside sources enhances my researching skills as it is usually characterized by intense research. However, the use of outside sources may be subject a student to certain challenges such as: Extra expenses incurred to access outside sources of information may hinder students from accessing these sources. In Addition, students may not be in a position to access certain sources of information guided by strict policies i.e. membership policies.

Other Lessons Learnt

During the course, I learnt the importance of proper inter-personal skills and networking. I learnt that proper communication skills and creating a proper rapport with other learners is crucial for networking, thus enhanced information acquisition.

References

EthicsGame | Online Ethics Curriculum Tools for Higher Education. (n.d.). Retrieved February 10, 2015, from http://www.ethicsgame.com/exec/site/eli.html
Wallwork, A. (2013). English for Academic Research Writing Exercises. New York: Springer.
Smith, S. (2013). Setting goals. New York: Rosen Pub. Group.