Skills Refined

What skills will you refine in this course

OR

How to translate what you learn in this class to future careers and/or graduate school.

It is not always clear how your work in the classroom and the community during college relates to job ads you read, careers you consider, and graduate school admissions. Below I list some of the skills I believe you will have refined as a result of your full engagement with this class. I am happy to speak with any of you about how you can update your resume with said skills.

1. Working on a team. This work allows you to refine the following skills:

   1. Collaboration across diverse ideas, people, and settings.

   2. Communicating your thoughts clearly to others.

   3. Communicating feedback about others’ work in constructive and supportive ways.

   4. Accepting feedback about your own work with the aim of improving your writing, speaking, and thinking.

2. Conducting a research project and writing it up. This work allows you to practice the following skills:

   1. Project management. How do I tackle this large project? What do I do first? What do I do next? How do I stay on task?

   2. Goal setting and revision of goals when you don’t meet goals.

   3. Writing clearly for a broad audience.

   4. Revising your writing.

   5. Revising again. And again.

3. Presenting your project in spoken form. This work allows you to practice the following skills:

   1. Turning a written project into a compact oral presentation with visuals.

   2. Preparing a PowerPoint or video that supports the story you want to tell.

   3. Telling an engaging story.

   4. Developing confidence to talk in front of an audience.