Developing Soft Skills and Personality

By Prof. T. Ravichandran | IIT Kanpur

Learners enrolled: 42603 | Exam registration: 17706

ABOUT THE COURSE :

The course aims to cause a basic awareness about the significance of soft skills in professional and inter-personal communications and facilitate an all-round development of personality. Hard or technical skills help securing a basic position in one's life and career. But only soft skills can ensure a person retain it, climb further, reach a pinnacle, achieve excellence, and derive fulfilment and supreme joy. Soft skills comprise pleasant and appealing personality traits as self-confidence, positive attitude, emotional intelligence, social grace, flexibility, friendliness and effective communication skills.

INTENDED AUDIENCE: Students, Teachers, Professionals, Trainers, Leaders, Employers

INDUSTRY SUPPORT : All industry/companies/organisations will recognize and value this course and recommend this for their employees and trainee programs.

Summary

Course Status :	Ongoing
Course Type :	Elective
Language for course content :	English
Duration :	8 weeks
Category :	Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit Points :	2
Level :	Undergraduate
Start Date :	19 Aug 2024
End Date :	11 Oct 2024
Enrollment Ends :	19 Aug 2024
Exam Registration Ends :	30 Aug 2024
Exam Date :	27 Oct 2024 IST

Note: This exam date is subject to change based on seat availability. You can check final exam date on your hall ticket.

Page Visits

Course layout

Week 1: Lecture 1: Introduction: A New Approach To Learning

Lecture 2: Planning And Goal-Setting

Lecture 3: Human Perceptions: Understanding People

Lecture 4: Types Of Soft Skills: Self-Management Skills

Lecture 5: Aiming For Excellence: Developing Potential And Self-Actualisation

Lecture 6: Need Achievement And Spiritual Intelligence

Week 2: Lecture 7: Conflict Resolution Skills: Seeking Win-Win Solution

Lecture 8: Inter-Personal Conflicts: Two Examples

Lecture 9: Inter-Personal Conflicts: Two Solutions

Lecture 10: Types Of Conflicts: Becoming A Conflict Resolution Expert

Lecture 11: Types Of Stress: Self-Awareness About Stress

Lecture 12: Regulating Stress: Making The Best Out Of Stress

Week 3: Lecture 13: Habits: Guiding Principles

Lecture 14: Habits: Identifying Good And Bad Habits

Lecture 15: Habits: Habit Cycle

Lecture 16: Breaking Bad Habits

Lecture 17: Using The Zeigarnik Effect For Productivity And Personal Growth

Lecture 18: Forming Habits Of Success

Week 4: Lecture 19: Communication: Significance Of Listening

Lecture 20:Communication: Active Listening

Lecture 21:Communication: Barriers To Active Listening

Lecture 22:Telephone Communication: Basic Telephone Skills

Lecture 23:Telephone Communication: Advanced Telephone Skills

Lecture 24: Telephone Communication: Essential Telephone Skills

Week 5: Lecture 25: Technology And Communication: Technological Personality

Lecture 26: Technology And Communication: Mobile Personality?

Lecture 27: Topic: Technology And Communication: E-Mail Principles

Lecture 28: Technology And Communication: How Not To Send E-Mails!

Lecture 29: Technology And Communication: Netiquette

Lecture 30: Technology And Communication: E-Mail Etiquette

Week 6: Lecture 31: Communication Skills: Effective Communication

Lecture 32: Barriers To Communication: Arising Out Of Sender/Receiver’s Personality

Lecture 33: Barriers To Communication: Interpersonal Transactions

Lecture 34: Barriers To Communication: Miscommunication

Lecture 35: Non-Verbal Communication: Pre-Thinking Assessment-1

Lecture 36: Non-Verbal Communication: Pre-Thinking Assessment-2

Week 7: Lecture 37: Nonverbal Communication: Introduction And Importance

Lecture 38: Non-Verbal Communication: Issues And Types

Lecture 39: Non-Verbal Communication: Basics And Universals

Lecture 40: Non-Verbal Communication: Interpreting Non-Verbal Cues

Lecture 41: Body Language: For Interviews

Lecture 42: Body Language: For Group Discussions

Week 8: Lecture 43: Presentation Skills: Overcoming Fear

Lecture 44: Presentation Skills: Becoming A Professional

Lecture 45: Presentation Skills: The Role Of Body Language

Lecture 46: Presentation Skills: Using Visuals

Lecture 47: Reading Skills: Effective Reading

Lecture 48: Human Relations: Developing Trust And Integrity

Books and references

Dorch, Patricia. What Are Soft Skills? New York: Execu Dress Publisher, 2013.
Kamin, Maxine. Soft Skills Revolution: A Guide for Connecting with Compassion for Trainers, Teams, and Leaders. Washington, DC: Pfeiffer & Company, 2013.
Klaus, Peggy, Jane Rohman & Molly Hamaker. The Hard Truth about Soft Skills. London: HarperCollins E-books, 2007.
Petes S. J., Francis. Soft Skills and Professional Communication. New Delhi: Tata McGraw-Hill Education, 2011.
Stein, Steven J. & Howard E. Book. The EQ Edge: Emotional Intelligence and Your Success. Canada: Wiley & Sons, 2006.

Instructor bio

Prof. T. Ravichandran

IIT Kanpur

Prof. T. RAVICHANDRAN is presently a Professor of English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India. He has written about fifty research articles/book chapters, supervised six doctoral theses, edited a special issue on Cyberpunk Literature for the Creative Forum Journal, and published a book on Postmodern Identity. He is a recipient of the Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship (2014-15) for his research/teaching at Duke University, North Carolina, USA. He is honored with Champa Devi Gangwal Chair Professorship at IIT Kanpur. In his distinguished twenty-five years of teaching career, he has taught various courses in English Language and Literature. His NPTEL Video and Web courses on Communication Skills are well-acclaimed nationally and internationally. His NPTEL MOOC on Developing Soft Skills and Personality became hugely popular and well-received by about fifteen thousand participants from India and abroad.

Course certificate

The course is free to enroll and learn from. But if you want a certificate, you have to register and write the proctored exam conducted by us in person at any of the designated exam centres.
The exam is optional for a fee of Rs 1000/- (Rupees one thousand only).
Date and Time of Exams: 27 October 2024 Morning session 9am to 12 noon; Afternoon Session 2pm to 5pm.
Registration url: Announcements will be made when the registration form is open for registrations.
The online registration form has to be filled and the certification exam fee needs to be paid. More details will be made available when the exam registration form is published. If there are any changes, it will be mentioned then.
Please check the form for more details on the cities where the exams will be held, the conditions you agree to when you fill the form etc.

CRITERIA TO GET A CERTIFICATE

Average assignment score = 25% of average of best 6 assignments out of the total 8 assignments given in the course.
Exam score = 75% of the proctored certification exam score out of 100

Final score = Average assignment score + Exam score

YOU WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR A CERTIFICATE ONLY IF AVERAGE ASSIGNMENT SCORE >=10/25 AND EXAM SCORE >= 30/75. If one of the 2 criteria is not met, you will not get the certificate even if the Final score >= 40/100.

Certificate will have your name, photograph and the score in the final exam with the breakup.It will have the logos of NPTEL and IIT Kanpur .It will be e-verifiable at nptel.ac.in/noc.

Only the e-certificate will be made available. Hard copies will not be dispatched.

Once again, thanks for your interest in our online courses and certification. Happy learning.

- NPTEL team

APPRECIATIONS AND COMMENTS BY THE CURRENT AND PREVIOUS BATCH STUDENTS:

I wish to convey a heartfelt thank you for the wonderful course on enhancing soft skills and personality. It is a blessing especially to people who are about to start their careers. They could be saved from committing many mistakes that could actually ruin their lives. I greatly appreciate the tremendous and sincere efforts that have been put in to design this course and make it available for all. Sir, you are very gentle in your speech and I have been looking forward each day to learning something new from you. I admire the way you explain with so many examples and quotes. It was a great learning experience for me. Thank you so much!- Manali Mehta

The entire course was well organized and was tailored to effectively deliver the intended objective of enhancing soft skills. You actually did justice to the course in every way- content, the distribution of modules over the week for them to co relate and be effective at each juncture that they were placed, overall delivery to the last bit of providing timely solutions to queries. I must congratulate you and your team for doing fantastic work in structuring this course and on its very successful completion. I look forward to the next! - Dr. Vineeta Saluja, Principal - Mata Gujri Mahila Mahavidyalaya, Jabalpur (12-05-2019)

Dear Sir, I am writing this mail to thank you. You just made my day. I went through your course on personality development on YouTube and it charged me. I am so relieved after watching your lecture on TECHNOLOGY AND COMMUNICATION: MOBILE PERSONALITY that I cannot express it in words. Sir, your video has saved my life. It is life changing. I request you to bless me so that I can move on the path shown by you. Once again thank you so much for providing such a beneficial video on very important issue of life.- P. K. Rai (10-04-2019)

Thank You sir for this Awesome Course. This course really was a great work of you. I now understand how much practice and hard work you been undergone to deliver such awesome and easy to understand lectures. My more thanks to you sir for lecture on habits [Week 3]. Concepts in lectures are difficult to understand and I don't think I could understood those without your guidance. - Siddharth Bhusari

I would like to thank you for providing this wonderful course with lots of subject information, examples and life examples . . . . Looking forward to more courses like this from NPTEL. My special thanks to the Professor for guiding and explaining elaborately and neatly about the subject. Also eagerly waiting to enroll for the next Enhancing course. - Ranjani

This course helped me a lot. I can experience the change in my life style. I am suggesting others at least to watch the videos. Thank you very much for the wonderful course. - Indugu Rushiraj (M. Tech (Digital Systems and Instrumentation-ETC) IIEST, Shibpur Howrah-711103)

The course is an enriching and transforming one. This course has helped me understand myself and develop in many ways. I appreciate the way you have designed this course. Thank you very much! I look forward to doing the next level. - Pankaj Haryan, pankajharyan8@gmail.com

This course is really helped me a lot.. This type of thing I was searching since 2 years. But I never found stuff that I needed. This is the course which provides me quality learning skills. Big Thanks to you sir . . . I'm blessed that I get chance to learn from you . . . Thank you..!! - Durga Charan (M.Tech Student PEC, Chandigarh), dcharan44@gmail.com

I am very excited and happy to convey my sincere feelings to you. This course not just only helped me in my teaching but also it helped to develop my personality in terms of my attitude. Sir, as you said in the presentations that it is not just to learn or get certificate but we should be in a position to implement and follow in our day to day life then only it will become life changing course. That's true Sir. Once again my best warm wishes to you sir for your wonderful efforts. - A. Praveen

Dear Sir, I am very blessed to have you as my guru. Sir, you have motivated and inspired me to become the human being with the essence of sensitiveness and mindfulness that everyone must possess. I promise you that I will imbibe all the necessary skills with regular practice. With all the valuable motivational tips and suggestions I learned in this course, had bought many essential changes in my thinking pattern. - Dilip Kumar

This was the perfect course which I sought one year back. The way you delivered the lectures were lucid. Lot of examples, new technical words were adding credits to it. This course brought Awareness on Communication Skill, Conflict Resolution methods, Non-verbal communication, Self-Actualisation, Interview Skill and Group Discussion. Apart from exam perspective I am satisfied in following this course for 8 weeks successfully bringing awareness around me. Thank you sir. – Gowtham

I have completed the course today. Today I feel equally proud as well as happy to have been a part of such a wonderful course. You and your supporting team is great. Thank you for putting this great course for us people. I am looking forward to the advance course in this series. Thank you sir. - Rahul Parwal (B.Tech, 2016, JIET Jodhpur)

I am feeling sentimental about end of this course! Two months have passed in no time, I became happy! Everyday in the evening after coming from office I used to watch your videos religiously. Sir I am from technical background, and have never learnt soft skill. Before this course I was knowing that Personality means simply the outlook/dress up/makeup, etc., of a person. After doing this course, I have change a lot and now I have forgotten the term “Anger”. Now I am able to understand the term “Humans and Humanity”. All the short stories used in the lecture were simple but highly effective. Your Etiquette session was superb! And the last week lecture was splendid! The most interesting was the summary in single slide. Keep sharing such thoughts so that humans behave like humans. The whole world has become selfish and inhuman. Most people have removed the word called humanity from their dictionary. I promise you sir I will apply these thoughts in the life. Thank you once again for the splendid course and reminding us that we are HUMANS. – Vinod Kumar

Dear Prof. T. Ravichandran, This is the first ever course I have pursued from NPTEL and my journey has been a fruitful one. The content and the structure of the course was well designed. Your short stories throughout the course were amazing. Your questions during the course were thought provoking. My intent of undergoing this course is full-filled and I am immensely grateful to you. - Richa Baid 29 October 2018

Respected Prof. Ravichandran, Thanks for your valuable lectures and interesting presentation. I had an excellent journey through the course, learnt so much about myself and my peers. I could map all my activities with the course contents. Thanks for this wonderful opportunity, will never forget this course in my lifetime. It became part and parcel of life & hand in hand in my routine . . . . – sandanalakshmi@pec.edu

Respected Sir, At first, when I registered I did not think this course would help me. But, today after the exam, I did realize the wonderfulness of the learning through the course. The course lectures have definitely made me change into a better version of myself. I would really appreciate the team of students and teachers who have been so persistent and working round the clock to answer the queried in the forum and also to conduct those 2 live sessions. So with a big Thank you. I will be definitely registering for Enhancing Soft Skills and Personality. Thank you Sir, - Yours Sincerely, Sanjith P Hemagiri

Statistics of Developing Soft Skills and Personality Course:

Timeline	Course Enrollment	Exam Registration
Jul-Sep 2016	14644	2537
Jul-Sep 2017	18054	2237
Aug-Oct 2018	38959	13102
Aug-Oct 2019	50380	17958
Sep-Nov 2020	35163	11265
Aug-Oct 2021	39324	14215
Jul-Dec 2022	41910	16810
Jul-Dec 2023	39307	13482

Statistics of Enhancing Soft Skills and Personality Course:

Timeline	Course Enrollment	Exam Registration
Feb-Apr 2017	18559	2867
Feb-Mar 2018	16525	3053
Feb-Apr 2019	38562	11126
Feb-Apr 2020	53027	4172
Feb-Apr 2021	44695	12224
Feb-Apr 2022	44033	14085
Jan-Apr 2023	54175	18235
Jan-Apr 2024	58748	19859

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