Soft and Research Skills Development

About this course

Soft skills are a combination of people skills, social skills, communication skills, character or personality traits, attitudes,career attributes, social intelligence, and emotional intelligence that enable people to navigate their environment, workwell with others, perform well, and achieve their goals with complementing hard skills. The Collins English Dictionarydefines the term “soft skills” as “desirable qualities for certain forms of employment that do not depend on acquiredknowledge: they include common sense, the ability to deal with people, and a positive flexible attitudeResearch skills like Bibliographic research, Academic Writing, Poster Presentation, Promotion of your Research, GrantWriting, Interview Tips and Digital Skills are also important to be taught from the final undergraduate year of anydiscipline.

The objectives of the course (offered for undergraduate and postgraduate students) are the following:

Develop an understanding of the importance of soft & research skills including how soft & Research skills are:

• Connected to technical or hard skills
• Raise awareness amongst students, teachers, and professionals
• Identify necessary soft skills depending on expertise
• Assess how soft skills can be improved
• Clarify and apply effective communication skills
• Define and outline effective leadership skills including best practices
• Examine and develop sense of self and culture

What are the Soft Skills a Scientist should have (Time Management, Problem Solving and Communication Skills)How Research Skills are connected with your research and professional career,

Expected learning outcomes

The Learning Outcomes of the Soft & Research Skills Development Module are the following:

• to be able to provide an overview of the most wanted soft skills the labor market requires
• to be able to apply the presented soft & research skills in her daily academic and research life
• to be able to cope successfully in an interview process
• to be able to analyze a complex problem into smaller units
• to be able to present, negotiate and convince of her claims
• to be able to write, submit and evaluate her work
• to be able to communicate digitally and face to face communication
• to be able to come back from fall back
• to be able to adapt in any new professional or social environment

Indicative Syllabus

An indicative syllabus of the course follows:

1.Definition of Soft Skills & their Importance for Professional Development and Survival 2.Building Your Oral Presentation Skills
3.Building Your Time Management Skills
4.Building Your Stress Management Skills
5.Building Your Critical Thinking Skills
6.Building Your Problem Solving Skills
7.Building Your Resilience Skills
8.Building Your Collaboration Skills
9.Building Your Adaptability Skills
10.Building Your Leadership Skills
11.Building Your Academic Writing Skills
12.How to Promote Your Research
13.How to Build Your Network and Write a Proposal
14.Building Your Interview Skills
15.Building Your Digital Skills
16.Building Your Digital Profile
17.How to use LinkedIn for your Career Development
18.Building Your Negotiation Skills
19.Building Your Motivation Skills
20.Building Your Emotional Intelligence Skills

Expected learning outcomes

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Teaching / Learning Methodology

Lectures (online, face to face): Every week three hours

Seminars: One seminar per two weeks where an external speaker interacts with our students in one of the aforementioned topics

Workshops:Where students practice the soft skills are taught

Recommended Reading

TBA