Skills Development

KSA (Knowledge, Skills, Attributes)
Technical and Non-technical KSA’s
What courses should I undertake to improve these KSA’s
Who can assist me in determining what skills I need?

SWOT Analysis

According to MindTools, SWOT is a technique that is useful to identify the strengths and weaknesses, and analysing the opportunities and threats of ourselves in order to be a successful person. I did the Mind Tools SWOT Analysis and found out this:

Strengths	Weaknesses
Advanced IT skills and knowledge. Meet deadlines Work under pressure Customer Service Enthusiasm, Adaptability	Don’t have an Australian degree. Don’t have a resident visa, but a student visa.
Opportunities	Threats
Validate my Venezuelan degree (system engineer). I am permitted to work 20 hours per week. I can work on Cleaning or Selling areas while I get my degree in IT.	Local residents have more opportunities than international students. Cannot take enough time to work since it can lead to failure my studies.

This Analysis will help me focus on my strengths, minimize my weaknesses, and take the greatest possible advantage of my opportunities. You can download the Mind Tools SWOT Analysis Worksheet by clicking here.

Learning Styles

We all have a preferred way of acquiring new knowledge. Identifying you learning style can be very useful for many purposes in your life. You can identify your learning styles trough a free online test: VAK Learning Styles Test. My results were: A’s = 15, B’s = 4, C’s = 11, which means I have both Visual and Kinaesthetic learning styles

"Someone with a Visual learning style has a preference for seen or observed things, including pictures, diagrams, demonstrations, displays, handouts, films, flip-chart, etc. These people will use phrases such as ‘show me’, ‘let’s have a look at that’ and will be best able to perform a new task after reading the instructions or watching someone else do it first. These are the people who will work from lists and written directions and instructions" (VAK Learning Styles Test)

"Someone with a Kinaesthetic learning style has a preference for physical experience - touching, feeling, holding, doing, practical hands-on experiences. These people will use phrases such as ‘let me try’, ‘how do you feel?’ and will be best able to perform a new task by going ahead and trying it out, learning as they go. These are the people who like to experiment, hands-on, and never look at the instructions first!" (VAK Learning Styles Test)

In conclusion, according to this webpage I learn the best by seeing images, demonstrations and reading handouts, and also by doing the procedures myself. Now on, I am going to look for this type of material when I need to learn something new. You should give it a try to!