Universities are expected to be instrumental in transforming young people into highly knowledgeable, skilled, motivated academics and professionals. Students, particularly those studying business degrees, need to quickly appreciate that whilst at University they are developing an academic and professional identity that will be used by others to make judgements about them. During the first year, they need to acquire the knowledge and skills to ensure these identities are developed as they would wish. They also need to know how to appraise their development and become reflective professionals.
The learning experience offered to students needs to reflect a world where information about the individual is made readily available through interactions with social media and the internet in general. Students need to learn how to deal with their exposure and, often unintended, lack of privacy.
At Plymouth we have themed our personal development modules (first and second year undergraduates) to take into account the responsibility students have to develop academic and professional identities and to minimise the risk of these being contaminated by their internet publicised social and personal identities.
We are conducting research to consider how effective we have been and will present our progress. We hope that this will stimulate discussion not only about our choice of methods but our findings to date.