Critical Reflection on the Development and Transfer of skills in Scholars and Other Scholastic Programs
While Updating my Resume to closer reflect how a well-formulated, polished resume should appear, I was able to reflect on the utility of the Scholars program and other academic endeavors in the development of skills that can be transferred past college living and into a job environment. These skills, while at first seeming highly variable and unrelated, are all, as it turns out, related to the G.O.A.L.S. of the Honors and Scholars program. As such, it follows that the discourse of these transferable skills can be made simple by the usage of this model.
The G.O.A.L.S. of the Honors and Scholars program is made up of five principles: Global Awareness, Original Inquiry, Academic Enrichment, Leadership Development, and Service Engagement, and all of the skills acquired through scholars can be related to one of these principles. For Global Awareness, the skills that are developed through scholars are largely career related. While arguably not global, the knowledge of different careers and the interconnectedness of different careers is useful both in selecting a career and understanding how different careers work with each other in order to solve problems. As such, these skills will directly affect one’s ability to function in the job market by increasing their efficiency both through selection of career and through working with others where one falls short. The skills relating to Original Inquiry are thinking-outside-of-the-box and the asking and subsequent attempt to answer original questions. These skills are fostered in scholars through events and activities that force the participants to think uniquely to solve the problem or those events which coax the participants to ask questions on something with which they may already be familiar (and there are a fair amount of both event types). The skills relating to Academic Enrichment can mostly be logically deduced (as the programs are part of an academic institution) and ergo require little explanation. However, some such skills developed in the scholars program include learning how to study and, by extension, learning how to learn and memorize information, which can be extremely useful in any job environment. A rather large amount of skills developed in the scholars program are related to the Leadership Development principle. One such skill is relying on the strengths of others where one falls short. Another skill in this sect is recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of others, a useful skill for any leader attempting to divide work to be completed in the most efficient manner as possible. Both of these skills are immensely important to leaders in any job field and were developed in the scholars program through group projects and through team-building events. The final skills are mainly developed through volunteering through the scholars program and are part of the principle of Service Engagement. As such, these skills are all related to the ability to serve others, or, in other words, the ability to work, an obviously essential skill for any person entering the workforce. Through volunteering, members of the scholars program are able to garner experience working, which can be directly translated to the workforce as an invaluable skill. In sum, the scholars program develops important skills through the usage of the G.O.A.L.S. model and these skills and abilities can be directly applied to the workforce after graduation.