What is it?
Confident
| Attribute Dimension | University of Glasgow graduates... |
|---|---|
| Academic | Defend their ideas in dialogue with peers and challenge disciplinary assumptions |
| Personal | Possess excellent interpersonal and social skills fostered within an internationalised community |
| Transferable | Demonstrate enthusiasm, leadership and the ability to positively influence others |
How will my degree develop it?
How will my degree develop it?
It can take some courage to put yourself forward in unfamiliar situations. You’ll probably remember that in your first university seminar or tutorial everyone kept quiet and did their best not to be noticed. But eventually some brave soul would venture an opinion - and tentatively, someone else would entirely disagree.
You soon realise that there isn’t only one ‘right’ answer at university: sometimes there are as many perspectives as there are people.
Studying for a degree requires you to formulate informed opinions on all sorts of topics and put those ideas forward in discussions and essays: you learn that being asked to defend your views isn’t a threat, but an opportunity to test the soundness of your thinking.
As your confidence grows, you’ll find yourself more actively seeking out conflicting perspectives to test on your own terms. You’ll discover new things about your personality, beliefs, biases and values.
In time you’ll become not only more comfortable with yourself, but those around you. And thanks to the University’s large proportion of international students you’re sure to make friends from all over the world, further helping to develop your confidence in all sorts of social situations.
The confidence you gain in yourself and your abilities from earning a university degree will stay with you for life and enable you to positively influence people wherever you go. If you have confidence in yourself, you’ll likely inspire it in others – an invaluable part of leadership.
How else can I develop it?
How else can I develop it?
Confident individuals invest belief in themselves and others. While your degree is likely to help your self-confidence to grow in time, there are other positive steps you can take:
- Assertiveness training can help you to deal with challenges in a more effective, positive manner.
- Helping to advise others can do wonders for your self-confidence. Why not consider becoming an e-mentor for the student network?
Greater self-confidence will make you feel more relaxed in all sorts of social situations. Joining just about any club or society or volunteering scheme will help with this, but a few have been particularly singled out by students for helping to develop their confidence:
- Through sports coaching you’ll face tough physical challenges, and a tougher audience – primary school kids
- If sport isn’t your thing, you can provide classroom support in just about any subject – and dazzle a roomful of schoolchildren with your disciplinary prowess
- The University’s Student Ambassador Scheme is not only great fun - it’s great practice in developing a quick rapport with fresh faces
- The Officer Training Corps isn’t just for students looking to join the army after graduation – it’s a great way to develop impressive leadership skills