Understand your learning styles Know your strengths and weaknesses University of Manchester Careers Blog

Understand your learning styles Know your strengths and weaknesses If you are doing an undergraduate degree straight from school or college you may not have had much opportunity to think about how you learn and what works best for you. Nor will you have had much of a chance to do anything about it, exams have to be done thus swotting up has to happen. I knew I was bad at exams and always found it hard to learn something by wrote especially if it wasnt something practical.   When I chose a postgraduate degree I looked for one that was course work only and it was so much more enjoyable.   I also chose a practical career related subject that I had already had some work experience in so I was able to relate my experiences directly and make the connection from theory to practice. Some years later .I did a course on training styles and we had to do a learning styles indicator and suddenly everything was clear. I learn by doing, Im practical and sad to say  impatient at times. So why is this relevant to you? Understanding how you learn will make the way you deal with university learning easier, you will understand if you are the sort of person who will do best writing notes, listening or participating in seminars and study groups. When you leave university you may have choices to make on the type of work or further study you want to do. If you understand what engages you then you can look at jobs or courses  and consider whether they will fit your way of working.  Especially if it is a job where you will need to learn for professional exams. When you work with other people, you will find that they all learn in different ways so if you are training them or you are working on  a group project you need to consider that other people may need time to reflect or read whereas you love to jump in. So go on give it a go try this learning styles indicator the details of how to access it and log-in are  on this page. Understand your strengths and weaknesses The questionnaire take just a couple of minutes and I thought it was pretty accurate about me. It tells you what you find easy, and hard and what you would get criticised by others for.  So if you get asked about strengths and weaknesses   at interview you now have a handy list of things you can consider and decide how you would pitch them. All Undergraduate Undergraduate-highlighted learning styles psychometric tests reflect reflecting self awareness