At the very least, professional development will allow you to gain skills, improve as an employee, and possibly even progress towards a promotion.  You don’t know what the future will bring, so it is best to be as prepared as possible.  Completing professional development will allow you to do just that.

Using what you have learned from the lecture, address the following prompts in your initial discussion post:

• Identify and describe a soft skill or quality that you wish you had or would like to improve on.
  • Remember, soft skills are not job specific.  They are behaviors and traits you portray across a variety of situations, such as communication, emotional intelligence, and dependability.
• Then, find and share a professional development opportunity that would help you to improve in your identified soft skill.
  • You might look for online training courses, self-help books, webinars, etc.
• Explain how professional development in your identified soft skill will help to make you a better employee.
• Finally, outline your plan for remaining knowledgeable and current in your chosen field.
  • For instance, if you are pursuing a degree in early childhood education, how will you make sure you stay up to date about best practices in working with children?  If you are earning a degree in human and social services, how will you keep yourself educated on treatment methodologies and techniques for interacting with clients?  If you want to work in the field of law or criminal justice, how will you know when important laws or statutes have changed?  
  • PART B 
    • Tell us about       yourself and what you think sets you apart from other applicants.
    • Briefly describe your biggest       professional weakness.
    • Tell us about a time where you       showed grit in the workplace. 
    • Summarize where you see yourself       in your career in the next 5, 10, and 20 years.
    • Imagine you were promoted within       the workplace.  Describe how you       would deal with your colleagues who may have been passed over for the       promotion or your coworkers who had been your peers but are now your       subordinates.
    • Identify what kind of person you       have difficulty working with. 
    • Explain how you handle conflict       in the workplace, with coworkers or with clients, patients, or customers.
    • Detail what motivates and       inspires you in the workplace.
    • Summarize what you like best       about your current or most recent job and why you are leaving that       position.