PDP: Personal Development Planning
A Template for the Personal Development Planning Process at IUPUI
A. One Definition: Personal Development Planning is a process which will enable first year
students at IUPUI to understand, implement, and mark progress towards a degree and career
goal by creating and following a personalized plan that is open to revision and reevaluation
every semester in collaboration with an academic advisor.
B. Two Institutional Objectives
1. Goal Commitment: Increase students’ commitment and motivation to achieve a
college degree through a personalized understanding and ownership of an integrated
academic and career planning process.
2. Academic Achievement: Increase student’s awareness and implementation of
personal, academic and career strategies to help them achieve their goals for college
and beyond.
C. Three Components of a Personal Development Plan (PDP)
1. Semester in Review: Reflect on individual strengths, long term goals, challenges
faced during the first semester, and IUPUI resources utilized.
2. Principles of Undergraduate Learning: Indentify how IUPUI’s learning outcomes
(PULs) are connected to personalized academic and experiential goals.
3. Peak Performance Plan: Outline specific action steps, courses, and extracurricular
activities targeted for the undergraduate experience.
D. Four Roles on the Instructional Team
1. Faculty will develop the learning community curriculum in collaboration with the
advisor on their instructional tem in order to integrate the PDP process into
instructional activities.
2. Advisors will conduct classroom interventions and activities to support the PDP
process and consult individually with students to help them develop their PDP.
3. Mentors can share examples of their own Personal Development Plan
4. Librarians can participate by providing resources to support career exploration.
E. Five Learning Outcomes in the PDP Process: In order for students to successfully complete
the three components of their PDP (see above) they will need to have opportunities in their
learning communities to experience some form of:
1. Self Assessment: Students identify success-related competencies that are natural
strengths they already have as well as other skills that they need to build.
2. Exploration: Students research and develop a realistic, informed, and detailed vision
of related academic and career goals.
3. Evaluation: Students analyze their academic progress over the semester in terms of
academic and career success strategies.
4. Goal Setting: Students connect a larger sense of personal values and life purpose to
the motivation behind their academic and career goals.
5. Planning: Students locate programs, information, people, and opportunities to
support and reality test their goals. They identify specific short term steps to reach
their long term goals.
Personal Development Planning: A Final First Year Seminar Project
In order to demonstrate your proficiency related to the five learning outcomes below, complete the
following activities. The first three will be submitted in a typed essay entitled: “Semester in Review.”
Attached to that essay will be the PUL chart and your five goals (#4) and your personal development plan
(#5). You will share this information with both your instructor and advisor.
1. Self-Assessment: Students identify success-related competencies that are natural strengths they already
have as well as other skills that they need to build.
Describe your top five strengths and support your claims by referring to how those strengths are
demonstrated in some of these areas: your personality type, your learning style; your accomplishments,
your interests, and/or your strongest school subjects in high school and college.
2.
Exploration: Students research and develop a realistic, informed, and detailed vision of related
academic and career goals.
Describe how your ideas about majors and careers have changed over the semester.
What specific things have you learned this semester (both positive and negative) about majors and careers
that you have been considering? What resources were helpful in your major/career exploration and why?
What questions do you still need to explore and how and when will you do so?
3.
Evaluation: Students analyze their academic progress over the semester in terms of academic and
career success strategies.
What challenges did you face this semester? What did they teach you about yourself and about college?
What skills do you need to improve or develop and how will you do so? How will you handle things
differently next semester?
4.
Goal Setting: Students connect a larger sense of personal values and life purpose to the motivation and
inspiration behind their academic and career goals.
Using the attached chart to begin to imagine specific goals for your college experience that connect to
IUPUI’s Principles of Undergraduate Learning. Personalize these principles by connecting them to your
personal values and greater life purpose. Think broadly about all the learning experiences that are
available to you in college: courses, research, internships, service, travel and employment. State five
specific goals for your college learning experiences. Each goal must have four ingredients:
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
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5.
Connect to a PUL
Connect to your personal values/life purpose
Provide an example of two learning experiences that could help you achieve the goal
Suggest a time frame for achieving the goal
Planning: Students local programs, information, people, and opportunities to support and reality test
their goals. They identify specific short term steps to reach their long term goals.
Complete ASPIRE Module 12.3 (Peak Performance Plan) which can be accessed at:
http://learningmodules.uc.iupui.edu