Many people who have succeeded academically had to put a lot of efforts with well articulated goals and the drive to achieve them. Some people however, feel that all the demands required for academic success are too much to bear since it involves denial of some aspects of life that may divert a student’s attention in academics. It is worth noting that many students would want to participate in activities such as night outs, weekend road trips, among other pleasurable activities. Continuous participation in these activities may eat away a student’s study time hence failure to achieve academic success. In the current era, students have plenty of learning materials that can be used in and outside classroom. With the enhancement in technology, university libraries have boost they databases by having online sources that students can easily access to ensure that they attain academic success ( Baghurst, Tapps & Kensinger, 2015) . Basically, attaining academic success involves setting goals that should be achieved at every stage of the academic period, developing and always improving writing skills as well as practicing critical thinking and maintaining academic integrity.
Setting Educational and Career Goals
Many educationists recommend that students who want to achieve success should have smart attainable goals. Student should shun from setting goals that are difficult to attain hence giving them restless time and eventually fail to get normal operation ability and lode of self drive. Setting high goals makes students anxious and even develops fear. It is therefore, important to set goals that make an individual remain focused and enable them create a plan that will help achieve them ( Baghurst, Tapps & Kensinger, 2015) . By doing this, students are able to bring their minds to a single area of focus to critically think and subsequently achieve great performance.
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When a person finds that the set goals appear difficult to attain, they should be broken down to simpler sub-goals that will allow the student remain on course. Setting goals provides a motivation towards achieving success. One educational goal that I have set is building my communication skills. To attain academic success, I should be a great communicator both orally and in written forms. One of my career goals is to be the most creative and adored writer and orator in the world. To achieve these goals, I will make use of all the materials in the Centre for writing Excellence found in the University library. Perfecting my writing skills will require me to learn how to use correct grammar and various writing styles through regular practice. Also I should avoid plagiarism, which is a most serious academic offence. These strategies will keep me focused throughout my academic journey and into my career.
The Writing Process
The best writers in the world are hard to come by. This is because writing has been seen as a hard task hence being neglected in both academic and work environments. Students who show excellent writing skills have a higher chance of getting good grades and standing out in the job market. Both academic and business sectors value the role of writing skills in building success and enhancing productivity ( York, Gibson & Rankin, 2015) . Academic integrity in school and work environments is important in coming up with accurate reports or when writing job application letters. Developing writing skills can be done by adopting techniques and policy to getting good writing skills.
Setting a goal such as developing writing skills is a motivation towards achieving what I want to do in future. It also helps me get better grades as I am able to communicate in a better manner. In my career, writing skills will be my big asset. As a writer, having excellent writing skills enables me to effectively communicate with the reader. Good write ups makes a good impression about the writer and this gives an upper hand in the world where many people have ventured into writing both real life and fictional literature. Furthermore, good writing skills give me an edge in the job market as many employers prefer employees who can express themselves in both verbal and written forms with ease.
Ethical Inventory Lens
From my exercise, the results showed that no single ethical lens is of my preference. The weaknesses and gifts offered by each of the lens do not hinder me and I am able to get the suitable items for every circumstance hence achieving the best results. My reasoning abilities help me establish my roles and at the same time getting the general rules that are fair to all players. My instincts also help me come up with the best for everyone and provide virtues that are suitable for all in the society. In times of problems, I analyze the various available options to ensure that I get the best that can help solve the issue effectively.
Solving such problems has been easy for me since I use my past experiences with the current information. I realized that I either have an established capacity to do the right thing in every situation of I assume that everyone’s point of view is correct. Just like those people who possess ethical skills that are underdeveloped, I test in the centre of the grid. People who lack the skills try to please everyone but my case is more of having mature tool selection ability.
Critical Thinking Skills
Critical thinking is an essential survival aspect in the current society where crucial decisions are made on daily basis. In order to improve my critical thinking skills, I will identify the reason why I have to make a decision. This implies that I need to understand my goal so that the choice of option I make helps me achieve the goal. This is beyond mere gathering of information to know what is well understood and the gaps that exist. Secondly I will take a keen look on my biases.
Every decision I make should be arrived at after consideration all the points of view. This ensures that the biases are well understood and their influence on the decisions is minimized. In order to achieve this, I will articulate my point of view and bring out the assumptions I am making so as to avoid distorted thinking. The last step is to analyze the consequences of the options at hand. Every decision has consequences and I will work towards making decisions that are fair to everybody involved in the issue. In general, I will improve my critical thinking skills by adhering to the critical thinking process and upholding high ethics.
University of Phoenix Resources
The University of Phoenix has many resources that will help me attain academic success. Education financial plan helps me to prepare my budget. Proper use of financial is important in ensuring that my stay in the university is free from financial stress. It will also help me know how much money I need to pay for my tuition and how I will get such money. This might include taking student loan to cater for accommodation, tuition, and to buy essential learning materials. Having a good financial plan will allow me to remain focused in academics hence, easy to achieve my set goals.
Maintaining healthy living is also essential because a student is able to fully attend classes and other important activities. Unhealthy living may result in contracting diseases that will make the student stay away from school hence, high chances of failing to achieve academic success. The school library has a lot of resources that give details regarding academic success, academic integrity and how to set goals and objectives that are achievable in education settings.
Other than the library sources, I will use outside sources that provide extra knowledge on my area of interest. Using outside sources has its own benefits and challenges. The first benefit of using outside sources is that it helps to bring in a different point of view on the topic being handled and makes a student’s work unique compared to all students using same sources offered by the university. Provided that reliable outside sources can be identified, new knowledge can be added to the work hence a sense of originality.
On the other hand, use of outside sources poses challenges. This includes access to misleading information. The internet for instance, contains a lot of sources that are sometimes hard to prove the credibility of the information given. If students do not take time to compare information from different sources and look for the credibility of the authors, they might end up getting the wrong information. Academic integrity is an important aspect in a students’ academic life. Some people use other people’s information and claim as their own. This is called plagiarism and it is a serious academic offence. In research, students need to acknowledge the original owners of every piece of information that is not their own ( Shashikiran, 2014) . Conclusion
In conclusion, academic success depends on a person’s set goals and objectives. Smart goals are easily achieved as it makes it easy to draw a plan on how such goals can be attained. Writing skills are essential in both academic and job market since it offers me a better opportunity to score better grades and eventually secure a good job. Critical thinking skills helps me make decisions in a more mature and considerable manner such that the consequences of such decisions are fair to everyone. In my point of view, it is important to have good goals that will help in educational and career endeavors and continuous improvement of writing skills encouraged.
References
Baghurst, T., Tapps, T., & Kensinger, W. (2015). Setting goals for achievement in physical education settings. Strategies, 28 (1), 27-33.
Shashikiran, N. (2014). Plagiarism and academic integrity. Journal of the Indian Society of pedodontics and Preventive Dentistry, 32(1), 1-2. Doi:http//dx.doi.org/10.4103/0970-4388126989
York, T., Gibson, C., & Rankin, S. (2015). Defining and measuring academic success. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation , 20(5-7), 1-20.
