What I Have Learned: How Placement Year Has Changed Me

What I have learned essay and how my placement year has carved me into a stronger person where I will share personal experience and thoughts.  From switching placement, adjusting to a new environment and performing has been challenging. What I believe I achieved in my placement year besides getting an in-depth industry insight as accounts assistant trainee is building my skills such as my discipline, time management skills, confidence, communication skills, and resilience.

I achieved my goal of fulfilling my bookkeeping duties even though I was not presented with as many training opportunities at my first placement I took it upon myself to look for external training. In order to improve the quality of my work. I have built my up my accounting knowledge and practical skills. I have gained hard skills with hand on experience with multiple accounting software. Sage 50 accounts professional, Sage 50 payroll, Xero accounting software, QuickBooks and improved my excel skills. I have improved my excel skills very well I have learned to use pivot tables to summarise sales day book data & purchase day book data. I have also learned how to generate specific reports such as Aged debtor’s analysis reports on sage 50 and a whole lot more.

I have built up my communication skills as I have been dealing with different personalities every day. I was able to prove to myself that I can manage the entire workplace with minimal supervision at my placement. This boosted my confidence tremendously. I can hold sales consultations without feeling anxious. My goal is to push forward with my work performance for the remaining months of my placement and to keep on learning and pushing myself to carve myself into a stronger professional.

My future goal is to be able to perform under pressure without crumbling under pressure and losing the entire aim of the task at hand. I still have a lot to learn but the experience so far has shown me the reality and expectations of a professional in the workplace. I have also understood for an organisation to be successful they are many processes that need to be put in place. It's been an eye-opening experience about the accounting industry. I just have to keep on pushing myself learning and improving day by day.

Finally, you have to be prepared for setbacks and challenges. However whatever adversity that may arise you must change your mindset. In whatever field you venture upon, pace in change in the workplace is constant. You learn every day something new.