Canterbury Christ Church University

BA (Hons) Business Studies with Foundation

Study Skills for Higher Education

Daniel Alexandru
C100035546
 A. Academic Skills

1. What Are Academic Skills?

To understand what academic skills are, it is necessary to comprehend what a skill is

in general. A skill requires three conditions: ability, knowledge and competence. A
person can develop skills through life experience, work experience, and through study.
Academic skills are the ones which are developed through study, especially higher
education. (Team, 2021).
Academic skills are an assemblage of study routine, learning pattern, and learning
strategies, all in a frame of a good time management. (Upson, 2019) These skills help
students not only to access the information, but to absorb it, to internalize it, to understand
it completely and to make it useful. The transformation of the theoretical knowledge in
practical skills is a key point in a successful career of a higher education student.
There are countries, especially ex-communist countries, in which the educational
system do not prepare students for the work market. The educational rules are old
fashioned, and they did not adapt themselves to the reality nowadays. The result is most
college graduates who do not work in their field, in Romania, for example, 80% of the
graduates chose a different career than the one they have a degree in. This situation leads
to a lack of competence, lack of specialists working in the area that they are prepared for.
In western countries the above situation does not represent an issue. Educational systems
are more suitable for the reality in the field, for the work market.

2. Academic Skills Required to be Successful in University and their Practicability in

Work Market

To acquire skills, abilities and competence is the main purpose of study, together with
the love of knowledge and intellectual curiosity. Skills that students acquire in universities
are numerous; some of the most important will be discussed below.

a) Academic Writing
Academic writing is maybe one of the first skills that a student acquires in higher
education programme. Academic writing is a special mode of expressing ideas in writing.
It must be concise, fluent, clear, supported by academic evidence. Its purpose is to make
students easily understand the message, the meaning, the instructions. Though it has a
formal style, this does not mean the vocabulary is too complex to be understood, or the
phrase topic and lengths is too hard to fallow. (Leeds, 2021). In academic writing, each
discipline uses special language, terms and vocabulary.
Academic writing can be used in the work market in the report preparation, strategies,
presentations, different types of analyses, in research, teaching, writing books or courses.
Academic writing helps the graduate not only to issue, to create, to elaborate or to
develop, but also to understand what others created, to understand the job’s requirements
and description.

b) Reading
 Reading is a skill that should have been formed in early childhood. Though, if a
student had had not acquired a priori reading skills, he or she must acquire this skill in the
university. Reading skill is more than simple reading, it means selective attitude and
research skills.
To be a good academic reader, the student must choose the authors, the titles and to
make plan of reading for each course. (University, 2021)
A good academic reader will be a good reader in his/her entire life too, the student will
study and research in every situation. For example, doctors and teacher learn all their
lives. Technological workers always need to read and get information about new updated
technologies. Even salles workers need to read about product or to improve their
negotiations skills. Reading is a necessity.

c) Searching for Information

A high condition of success in all fields or domains is information. Nowadays,

information is the new gold, the new priesthood. In the academic environment
information is vital for the normal development of a student.
It is important to be selective with the sources of information and use only relevant,
appropriate and trustful ones. (University, 2021). Within a text of a book or of a course, it
could be fount references and in-text citation. It is recommended to go to the mentioned
sources and dig deeper into information.
The library is a good place to gather information, but it is not the only one. Universities
have now applications with information useful for students, they also have date base or
electronic device which contains information.
Beyond all these, the internet is a good source of information, but the student must be
selective with the internet. Being a free virtual space, with less regulation and less quality
and veracity control, internet requires selective skills and critical thinking.
This skill is useful in all work domain, from doctors to builders and from politicians to
farmers. A person who has the information has also the knowledge to do that job, so the
success is more likely to be achieved.

d) Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is a skill that helps the student to have his/her own point of view and
to evaluate something. (University, 2021). It helps the student to keep an open mind while
studying. Critical thinking is about questioning the veracity of sources, others points of
view, or the self-work. Critical thinking helps the student not to accept what he/she hears
or reads at the face value, but to investigate and go deeper in the information.
Critical thinking is about prioritising, about evaluating what is more important and
what is less important.
It is necessary to have critical thinking in career and later in life. In work market it
helps to good observation, analyses, communication and mainly problem solving. (Team,
2021)

e) Time Management
Time management is a real secret for success. It requires discipline, organisational
skills and prioritising. It helps the student to achieve his goals and to respect his deadlines.
Time management is a skill that is useful later in life also.
 Time management means four steps: planning the work, prioritising the tasks, organising
the things that must be done, and to avoid the distractions. (University, 2021) It is vital for
success; the student cannot achieve anything without a good time management and discipline.
Time management is vital in any job, in any career, in every domain. It is vital to complete
a day of work, to manage deadlines, to organise teams, to fulfil the goals and the projects. In
leadership position is more necessary, but even a simple worker needs a good time
management.

f) Academic Integrity and Plagiarism

One of the most important skill in higher education is academic integrity. The academic
work means to read, hear, inform about the others “ideas and to combine the result with the
student’s own ideas. A new opera, work, view, opinion comes from this process. This way of
working must be encouraged. (Leeds, 2021)
Sadly, there are cases of plagiarism, which is intellectual theft. It is not less serious than
the classical theft, and a good, honest student must truly avoid the plagiarism.
Integrity is a life principle not only in academic environment, but also in all the aspects of
the life: family, career, friends, ourselves. There are people who lost good jobs because lack
of integrity. In conclusion, this skill that students acquire in the university is important for
their career and for their personal development.
Other academic skills are important in work market: revisions and exams help to achieve
deadlines, note taking help to summarise and retain the information in meetings or trainings.
Generally, all academic skills have relevant contribution in marketplace.

3. 6 Recommendations to improve the content of the CV.

A curriculum vitae (Latin) is a summary of the work experience and studies. The main
goal of a CV is to be noticed by the employers and to call the candidate to an interview. The
CV is the longer variant of a resume.
There are recommended things to add in a CV, but also things to avoid in this professional
document about the life and the experience of the candidate.

1. Include voluntary work and hobbies.

It is a good impact to include all the voluntary work, free activities or hobbies in the CV.
It shows the employer who the real person is, what are his/her passions. Voluntary work also
proves that the candidate is ready to make no charged work for the social responsibilities and
the good of others (people, planet, animals). (CVNATION, 2020)

2. Research the position you apply for

It is important to have knowledge about the wanted role. It is highly recommended to have
more CVs, each of them personalized after the domain, professional area, or the position. Job
description is one step, but it is better to go further with the research of the company values,
prospective, requirements and profile.

3. Honesty and integrity

 In all the aspects of the life honesty and integrity is a necessary value and principle. Lies
should not exist in a CV, exaggerating the skills or the experience should not exist also. It is
preferrable to write in a simple, honest manner about the life, work and study experience. If
the application is based on lies, if if the candidate gets the job, eventually, he will be
overwhelmed, the employer will be discontent, and nobody will be happy.

4. Font, format, grammar and spelling

The aspect of the CV is same important as the content. The font should be calm, easy to
read, simple. Format should be clear and precise, with a balance between much and less. The
white parts of the page are not desirable, but a too crowded page is not easy to read and
understand. (Team, March 2021)
The spelling must be perfect and there should not be grammar mistake at all.

5. Avoid clichés.

Some CVs include phrases or keywords that are overused and do not have the impact on
the recruiters. The recruiters became insensitive to these types of language (hardworking,
good communication skills, enthusiastic). (CVNATION, 2020)
If there is really need for adding these, they should be backed up with examples, proofs,
practical achievement in these skills. In addition, things that say nothing interesting should be
avoid. For example, if the candidate enjoys watching movies, which is a common hobby, this
must not appear in the CV.
The CV, though formal, should be original and should be a unique picture of the candidate.

6. Have an achiever attitude, not a doer one.

A doer is someone who does something, who performs actions. An achiever is aware of
his value, someone who can tell how he /she did, what value had his actions and how the
company, the project, the mission changed in better.
Identification of the achievements must be supported, backed up with metrics, statistics,
pragmatic real data, it is about how much the candidate did and how he did it.

CVNATION, 2020. * ways to improve your CV. https://cv-nation.com/blogs/news/8-tips-to-improve-

your-cv.

https://library.leeds.ac.uk/info/14011/writing/106/academic_writing, 2021. Reading. University of

Leeds.

Leeds, A. o., 2021. Academic Writing.

https://library.leeds.ac.uk/info/14011/writing/106/academic_writing.
Leeds, U. o., 2021. Academic Integrity and Plagiarism.
https://library.leeds.ac.uk/info/1401/academic_skills/46/academic_integrity_and_plagiarism/2.

Team, I. E., 2021. Critical Thinking.

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/critical-thinking-skills.

Team, I. E., 2021. What are skills?.

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/what-are-skills.

Team, I. E., March 2021. 10 WAYS TO ENHANCE YOUR CV.

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/resumes-cover-letters/enhance-cv.

University, L., 2021. Critical Thinking.

https://library.leeds.ac.uk/info/1401/academic_skills/105/critical_thinking.

University, L., 2021. Reading. https://library.leeds.ac.uk/info/1401/academic_skills/207/reading.

University, L., 2021. Search for Information.

https://library.leeds.ac.uk/info/1401/academic_skills/86/searching_for_information.

University, L., 2021. Time Management.

https://library.leeds.ac.uk/info/1401/academic_skills/84/time_management.

Upson, M., 2019. https://www.practicaladultinsights.com/what-are-academic-skills.htm.