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Step 2. What you learn

It is important to think about the process you go through when acquiring new knowledge and qualifications, both during your study and outside the university. Companies are very much interested in hearing how you work with specific tasks and how you solve the different challenges you come across in your life. Your future employer is hiring you - not your university diploma.

Therefore, it is important to be able to describe how you approach and work with different tasks.

Test your knowledge and qualifications in practice 

The best way to familiarize yourself with how to use the acquired knowledge and qualifications from your education is to test them out in a practical setting. Something that can already be done during your studies. You can do voluntary work, project work, or find yourself a student job. By exploring your career opportunities outside of the university, you automatically create and strengthen your professional network.

You can divide your qualifications into three types:

 

You acquire the general academic competencies when you work with different academic challenges and tools. In your study, it is often not the product you are judged on, but rather whether you are able to critically relate to and reflect on the process you have been through. Including how you have specifically approached challenges towards the product.

What are your general academic competencies?
With your education, you achieve the following general academic competencies:

  • be able to delimit, define and analyze an academic problem using relevant academic theories and methods
  • be able to systematize complex knowledge and data as well as select and prioritize matters that are significant to the topic
  • be able to critically evaluate the various theories and methods of the subject
  • have a precise and consistent application of concepts and be able to engage in dialogue and argue on a basic theoretical basis
  • take a critical stand on sources and document them
  • convey professional issues and solution models so that it becomes relevant and understandable for different target groups
  • be able to handle complex and development-oriented situations and enter into a collaboration, including being able to receive and give constructive criticism
  • be able to work independently, disciplined, structured and purposeful, including also being able to meet deadlines and formalities

You can read more about your general academic competencies in your curriculum.

The subject specific competences are the competences that are unique to your programme. They are the ones that separate your professionalism from other programmes’ professionalism, If you’d like a career in research or teaching in your field, then it is among other the subject specific competences you’ll be drawing on.

Single-subject graduates
For single-subject graduates, the programme regulations state that the aim of your educate programme is to ensure that you:

  • are well-grounded in humanities concepts and practices and have broadly familiarised yourself with the main fields of English (language, literature, history/culture).
  •  are confident in the use of academically relevant theories and methods and have acquired basic research skills through your Master’s thesis. 
  •  can argue and express yourself in nuanced and context-appropriate English, both orally and in writing, and translate at a high level between Danish and English, taking into account linguistic correctness, level of style and situation.
  •  can understand and apply academic texts written in English and in the Scandinavian languages.
  •  can communicate in English and Danish with specialists and generalists on academic and general issues.

Two-subject graduates
For two-subject graduates, the programme regulations state that the aim of your studies is to ensure that you:

  • through teaching at the highest level in the main fields of English (language, literature, history/culture) have learned to apply theories and methods relevant to the subject.
  •  have acquired basic research skills through your Master’s thesis.
  •  can argue and express yourself in context-appropriate English, both orally and in writing, and translate between Danish and English, taking into account linguistic correctness, level of style and situation.
  •  can understand and apply academic texts written in English and in the Scandinavian languages.
  • can communicate in English and Danish with specialists and generalists on academic and general issues.

As either a single-subject or two-subject graduate, you are well-equipped to teach English at upper secondary and equivalent levels. Furthermore, you will be able to perform functions in private companies, organisations and public institutions that require nuanced communication between English and Danish culture.

Your personal competences are about the way you approach a task and how you approach human relationships. For example, you may be particularly good at collaborating, making decisions or working in a structured way.

Your personal competences thus describe your qualities as a person, which has a great influence on how you carry out your work and how you collaborate with others.

It is a good idea to practice putting your personal skills into words. Once you are clarified, you are more attractive to a potential employer. You can better present yourself and assess whether a type of job or workplace is right for you.

Employers are often also at least as interested in hearing about who you are and what motivates you as what you have read.

What are your personal competences?
You can consider how you typically approach a task and approach collaboration as it will tell something about your personal competences. Try to do the following exercise concretely:

Exercise

Think back to the last time you participated in a project work:

- How did you approach the process from the start?
- What went well?
- What went less well?
- What personal competencies in you were the reason for the things that went well?

 

Do you need help figuring out what you can and want to do?

➤Contact Career Guidance

Last Updated 07.11.2023