Personal Development Plan

The personal development plan (PDP) is a tool to support your development. It is a written document for continuously planning and directing your competency development by formulating goals based on your reflection on learning experiences. A PDP is not a fixed document; you can update it along with your development.

Formulating goals provides your learning with a direction and makes it possible to evaluate and monitor your progress. In general, goals need to be meaningful and relevant for your competency development. Also, goals need to be formulated as concrete as possible. A tool to formulate goals effectively is SMART. You can find more information about SMART goals in the PDP guidelines.

The professional idenitity and vision that you develop and refer to in your PDP becomes your point of reference and gives a specific focus when performing learning activities during the semester. You will use your PDP as a tool to direct your long-term (professional identity, vision, expertise areas) and short-term development (learning objectives in a course or project). Based on the long-term and short-term goals in your PDP various learning activities are selected and what you want to achieve in a particular activity is made concrete. 

It is important to discuss the content of your PDP with your teacher coach. It is also the assessor’s point of reference when he or she assesses your overall development and growth as a designer at the end of your bachelor program.