How is your Personal Development Pearl going? Are you completing the goal that you set for yourself this semester or are you still contemplating what you would like to work on? Below are some ideas of things that you could use as your PDP!

·         Pick up an effective study habit: Visit your Career Services, Tutoring Center or Academic Resource Center on campus to get some ideas on effective study techniques and then incorporate them into your daily routine.

·         Listen to a daily news/education podcasts: You can download many different applications on your android, IPhone, IPad, etc. to listen to podcasts. By downloading something like BeyondPod you can upload many different podcasts or programs such as news feeds to keep up on current events, education content to learn more on a topic or even a new language!

·         Update your resume: Do you have a resume? Do you have different versions of your resume? This is a document that you should have on file so you can keep current records of your involvement and experiences and also so you have it for a last minute internship or job fair you will attend. Visit your campus' Career Services Office so ask them for help in updating your resume and learning tricks to help you keep it updated and relevant.

Do you need some help completing your PDP? Get SMART! When you are completing your goals utilize the SMART method.

·         Specific: When you create a goal you need your goal to outline specifics about the goal. It may be easy for you to consider who, what, when, where, why, how. Rather than making a statement of "Our chapter will increase our overall GPA by .05" you want to make it specific by saying "Our chapter will increase our overall GPA by .05 in the fall semester through utilizing our academic program, encouraging sisters to attend library hours and incorporate incentives for sisters performing well."

·         Measured: How can you measure your goal? How can you quantify your success? If your goal is to increase chapter involvement you can identify that 80% of chapter members will attend meetings.

·         Attainable: Is your goal attainable? Setting the goal "Our chapter will raise $25,000 toward our philanthropy" may not be attainable if you raised $5,000 every other semester. A better goal may be to increase fundraising by 20%.

·         Realistic: By creating a realistic goal you should ask yourself if you really want to incorporate it. If your goal is to increase your chapter's social events by 3 events during a semester that may not be something your chapter wants to do

·         Timely: What is your deadline? By identifying a specific date you can encourage members to work harder toward the goal.