Personal Development Plans

This week we have been asked to research into PDP's or otherwise known as Personal Development Plans.

Previously in other jobs, or insitutes of education I have had to create Personal Development Plans as part of the course, so I have had some experiance in writing them and following them.

For example;

Before I came to Swansea Metropolitan University, I had an apprenticeship with an IT Training Academy, during my apprenticeship I was required to make a PDP, from what I can remember the first question was something along the lines of 'Where do I see myself in 5 years'. Now I was only 17 at the time and didn't particular have a solid plan because I was so young however I do believe I put something along the lines of "In 5 years time I have hoped to have finished my time within the apprenticeship and gained the most out of it. I then hope to carry on to either University studying computers or a job with IT Support". Now for me this answer was what I wanted to, however a lot can happen within 5 years, what actually happened was I finished my apprenticeship with all the qualifactions I could gain from it, I then took 2 months out to find a job within IT support I then quickly realised employers didn't want to hire 18 year olds for whatever reason. So I thought I will give University a go, I was late applying to university and got accepted into Swansea Met through clearing due to this I picked the wrong course, and studied that subject for a year, needless to say I didn't do very well failed it and dropped it turns out that I didn't want to learn programming as I first though so I changed to a different degree doing Interactive Digital Media, which is more for me It allows me to learn about subjects that I actually want to learn about.

Anyway as you can see the 5 years didn't exactly work out, however by the end of the 5 years I will still have my degree and be out of university for a year, hopefully in a successful job doing something that I love and can see myself doing for the rest of my life.

The next part of the PDP I had to write was 'How am I going to achieve this', This part was simple for me I know what I needed to do to get to where I wanted and not much has changed now. When I answered this question Im 99% I would have answered 'To achieve my goals, I am going to need to pass all my exams so that I finish my apprenticeship I will then have to look for a job or apply to university, after I have done this my goals for the 5 years will be complete" If I am honest not alot has changed now, inpart from the fact I need to replan the next 5 years after I complete my degree, but I have 3 years to do that in, I know what I want to do after uni and I know how to achieve this.

There is one part of the PDP which is rather tricky to answer the question is 'How do we know when we arrive?' I guess for me I will know im there once I finish my degree and I find myself having to do a PDP for the next 5 years within the company that I am working for, once I get to that stage I will then think you know what I've done pretty well for myself.


Anyway there are a lot of different ways to write PDP's personally I keep them simple, however you can go into much more detail than I have if desired, you can even make the PDP for more than 5 years. Some people write them for 10 years ahead of themselves. Although I would like to do this I can't since its hard to predict where I will be in 10 years, hopefully I will have a nice house somewhere hot, a nice car and still with my partner. The future is so indesicive I can't tell where I will be, this blog post hasn't had much research done to it this is my point of veiw and my answers to what questions where asked of me.