A Student Guide To Practising Soft Skills in Academics

Soft skills are essential personality traits or habits that can be useful in our professional lives. These set of skills are often seen as desirable by potential employers, and thus, students should look to inculcate them as best as possible. However, most students have no idea how to learn and pick up soft skills while studying. Some positive traits will become your pillars of strength to secure a respected and satisfying career position.

These tips below are a sure-shot way of learning your soft skills and practicing them as a student.

According to a 2017 study, soft skills are attributes, traits, or behaviors that help us develop productive and meaningful relationships with our supervisors, managers, and co-workers and help us thrive in a workplace

Some of the examples of soft skills are:

• Creativity
• Communication
• Collaboration
• Problem-solving
• Positivist
• Adaptability
• Negotiating
• Working under pressure
• Learning from criticism

As you can see, there are several soft skills that one can inculcate, preferably as a student.

This is because soft skills can provide you with numerous advantages like:

• They can help to improve your employ ability
• It can help you to achieve success in your organization
• They can help to promote and progress your career
• Helps you become more adaptable in your workplace
• It provides for great interpersonal skills and makes great leaders

Thus, soft skills are vital to leading a more productive life and finding success in your career. And the best time to inculcate these skills is when you are a student. Thus, soft skills are vital to leading a more productive life and finding success in your career. And the best time to inculcate these skills is when you are a student.

This is because you need to prepare yourself for your professional career while you are studying. Thus, these skills are critical for students to acquire their professional roles in their later lives.

This is why if you are a student, you should immediately start to use your soft skills. The tips given below will help you pick up key soft skills and practice them in your academic life. However, most students have no idea how to learn and pick up soft skills while studying.

How can students practice soft skills in an academic environment?

The best time to pick up soft skills and start practicing them is when you are a student. At a young age, you will be better able to utilize your soft skills and sharpen them for future use. These tips below are a sure-shot way of learning your soft skills and practicing them as a student.

Practice public speaking

As a student, you will get plenty of opportunities where you will have to speak in front of the whole class and your teachers. For example, you might be required to present your slides in class or answer questions for your viva. This is where you can try to take things up a notch and give your best effort.Try to grab every opportunity you get to practice speaking in front of a group of people. Public speaking makes you more confident and improves your communication skills. Try practicing speaking in front of a mirror at home, and work on your speech, tone, and pronunciation. With some practice, you can become a great public speaker easily.

Take active participation in group projects

Group projects are given to students for a reason. They are meant to foster teamwork and simulate an office environment where individuals have to collaborate and work to develop an effective solution.

Group projects help to improve your interpersonal, communication, problem-solving, and interactive skills, all of which will come in useful in your later professional life.

Try to take active participation in your group projects and ensure you keep up with group deadlines, to work seamlessly with your teammates. Also, try to value everyone’s ideas and respect each other; opinions. Always remember, great team players, become excellent leaders.

Write your assignments diligently

When you write different assignments you tend to brush up on your writing skills. Carrying out thorough research on your topics helps you pick up new words and improves your written skills like sentence structuring, grammar and spelling, among others.

This is why it is advised that you treat every assignment that you get as a student with utmost importance. Try practicing speaking in front of a mirror at home, and work on your speech, tone, and pronunciation. With some practice, you can become a great public speaker easily.

Also, instead of readily going after the best custom writing help online to submit your assignments, you should try to write them independently yourself. This will help you become adept at writing perfect assignments and also improve your written skills.

Manage your schedule wisely

As a student, you will often have to keep up with several deadlines related to different assignments. You will also have to juggle your part-time work, your extra-curricular activities, and of course, take out time to attend lectures in school. Thus, to keep up with every activity, you need to manage your schedule wisely. You can try using a schedule planner or maintaining a diary with you.

You can try to effectively manage your time for various activities using your timetable so that you get to carry out every activity with ample time at hand. In this way, you can write and submit all your assignments within your deadline and participate in other everyday activities. Managing your schedule efficiently also helps you work under pressure, improves your adaptability, and makes you adept at time management. These are key skills that are seen as attractive by employers globally.

Use criticism in a constructive way

When you are a student, you will have to face a lot of criticism in your everyday life. For example, your professor may have marked your assignment with a very poor score, or your sports coach might have a few words for you after you failed to put in your best efforts. The bottom line here is to use that criticism constructively and not let it dampen your spirit. However, it is vital that you inculcate these skills as a student, as this is the prime time to build up these skills.

You can try to use whatever criticism you receive positively and make changes accordingly so that next time, you let everyone know what a shining star you are. And this is critical to learn as a student, as criticism tends to be moderate in your academic environment. Your employer or supervisor might be trickier in a more professional setting. This is why you must treat every criticism that you receive constructively as a student.

Apart from utilizing these tips, there are a variety of courses that you can get enrolled in to sharpen your soft skills. However, it is vital that you inculcate these skills as a student, as this is the prime time to build up these skills.

Final thoughts

Only when you sharpen your soft skills as a student do you get to demonstrate critical traits of motivation, commitment, enthusiasm, and dedication to your employers. All these positive traits will become your pillars of strength to secure a respected and satisfying career position.

Author Bio

Alvin Louis is a professor of Sociology at the University of San Antonio. He works with MyAssignmenthelp.com as a research associate and loves guiding students with critical academic paperCustom s.