Professional Development

A Journey of Understanding

As a young adult just embarking on life, I find myself thinking continuously on professional development. I think of professional development as being the skills and experience that you acquire through hands on learning and instructional teaching. Searching online I find that there is a collective agreement of what professional development entails. It’s referred to as an acquisition of skills, knowledge both for personal development and career advancement. Encompassing the facilitated learning opportunities from university degrees to conferences, and informal learning opportunities in situational practices.

Currently as I sit and evaluate all of the development that I have undergone since my graduation from undergrad. I can’t help but wonder at what point does all of the acquired knowledge come together to make an acute expert of an individual. The variety of developmental opportunities that one partakes in knowingly and unconsciously that help shape one’s individual perspective surely has to have an enlightening moment.

Indeed there are many circumstances or forces that participate in each individual’s development course. Some individuals pursue lifelong learning interest, others do so out of obligation, many may do so to maintain and improve professional competence in order to enhance career progression. In doing so keeping in stride with emerging techniques, technology and practices.

All of which should add to a competent individual with a credible skill set, degrees, certificates and understanding. This point of view is debatable, if an individual has no level of initiative, interest or desire then all of the formal coursework, lesson studies, or mentoring will be of no use. With anything the first priority of any sane person seeking more out of oneself should be what am I looking to grasp. Everyone must find this for themselves and pursue it vigorously with tremendous effort. It will not be handed to you, it’s most likely to be stumbled upon out of great effort.