Graduate Success Attributes is one of the general course that I took in this first semester. This course is under Cluster 2, which is a generic skills cluster that has a total of 7 topics to be learned, which are communication skills, thinking skills, scholarship, leadership and teamworking, adaptability, enterprising skills and global citizenship. The course code is UHMT1012-33 and my lecturer is Dr. Norhaida bt Mohd Suaib. The objectives of writing this report are to revisit all related topics learnt during this semester and to associate the skills or attributes towards graduate success.
Communication skill is the first topic in graduate success attributes because it is a fundamental skill that can lead people to success. When a person has low communication skill, they will have a tough time to learn other important skills as they have problems in sending their message to others and receiving message from others, hence miscommunication and misunderstanding commonly happens. When I begin my first semester as an undergraduate student at the University of Technology Malaysia, I have a few challenges in developing my communication skills in written forms, as the class conducted fully online this semester. The written communication channel is more common to use instead of oral communication as most of my class conducted asynchronously. If there is any confusion or need more elaboration of the topics that I learned in class, I have to write my problems from class groups, such as Telegram group, Whatsapp group and e-Learning forum. After learning about ways to improve communication skill, I begin to implement the knowledge on daily basis. Now, it is easier to communicate with my peers and lecturers when I have something to talk about as I am getting better in sending my messages. I also understand that certain words that can spark urgency are not recommended in writing, as they can feel the tension from the message. This has helped me in my studies and learning process as I can discuss with my friends to understand and solve problems and difficult questions after class. Listening is the most time spent in my class time, either synchronous or asynchronous. It is very important to focus on the speaker and understand what is the content that they have given. Some of the things I did when listening to others is to keep an open mind, to not interrupt the speaker and do not ask excessive questions. Listening has greatly helped me in understanding the materials and content explained by the lecturers, so I could perform better in quizzes, tests, assignments and final examination. This is a lifelong skill that I need to continuously learn and improve over time as it is very beneficial in my future career and life.
Leadership and teamworking skills are the most applied skills for me throughout this semester. All of my subjects require formation group and team to work on a project or assignments. This is to ensure that we could practice more on the working experience since working environments work in an organization in teams of people that are assigned with different tasks. Leadership is a process whereby an individual influence a group of individuals to achieve a common goal. Leaders are different from managers; managers are more focused on managing the people in the organization while leaders inspire people to achieve the desired outcome of a project. With good leadership, the person can lead a group of people efficiently and effectively to finish a heavy task. Teamworking is the combined action and works within a group of people to accomplish. A leader usually in charge of a group to develop good team working and distribute tasks equally, so the work can be finished in time with great quality. For graduate success attributes subject, my section required to form a group of 9 people to work on assignments and a final group project. Even when the class conducted virtually, we still managed to gather with my teammates after forming a group and decide who is a leader. We take a democratic approach by using voting system with google forms. After that, we divide into 3 subgroups and respective assignments to work on. Within the main group, it is more of Laissez-faire approaches, as the leader is fine with whatever the outcome of the subgroups, but will occasionally remind the due date. However, within my subgroup, we take more of democratic approaches and work together to finish assignment 3. I am grateful that all of my members give full cooperation and responsible for their tasks. These skills are helping me and my team members on finishing all the related coursework for this subject. It also helps me to be more aware of time management of work and teamworking definitely saves a lot of everyone’s time when working on a big project.
The final skill that I want to discuss is adaptability. Adaptability skill is the individual’s capability of changing behaviour according to the environments, requirements and situations. There are 3 dimensions of adaptability; intrapersonal, interpersonal and technology. Intrapersonal adaptability is the ability to change within ourselves. Intrapersonal adaptability is more focused on the external environment that we have to change. For example, Covid-19 pandemic has affected many organizations and workers to adapt to the situation and required to work from home to ensures that their health is protected from the infectious virus. This skill set has become more prominent and relevant due to the current situation. It is not only affecting the students but also all people around the world. We have to adapt to the new situation and be more concerns about our environment. As a student currently learning from home, I have to adapt to the situation and learn virtually for a whole semester. Even though there are some issues at the beginning, such as unreadiness of technology equipment, the slow internet speed and having to increase screen time and affecting my eyesight, I now have managed my problems and currently adapt with using the technologies. I am also adapting my intrapersonal skills by keeping in touch with my mental and physical health. Being quarantine in my own house for almost a year, it does affects my overall wellbeing as I have fewer people to interact and physically moving less. I realized that I need to adapt quickly and build a new lifestyle to cope with my problems, so I took the initiative to call with close friends and doing some exercises such as aerobics. This has resulted in a drastic improvement in my overall mood and I am now capable of being productive and finish all the works.
This subject has taught me the skills and attributes to become a successful graduate. All of the topics that I learned is very informative, helpful and applicable to everyday life. The most impactful skills for me are communication skills, leadership and thinking skills, and adaptability skills. It gives me a lifelong learning lesson and I will definitely continue to develop these 7 skills even after I graduated from my university.