Professional and Personal Development of a Student as a Key to Sustainable Development of the State

The article is devoted to the role of higher education and professional and personal development of students as future professionals for the sustainable development of the state. The attitude toward the problem of acquiring a profession as a life value and professional and personal development as a comprehensive formation of the meta-subject competence of a university student are considered. The features and problems of the process of developing professional skills and competencies, as well as personal qualities, such as responsibility, initiative, creativity, and others, that contribute to effective interaction between a professional and society are analyzed. The results of a comparative study of the characteristics of students’ attitudes toward their chosen profession and their needs for personal and professional development, conducted in 2020 and 2023, are presented. The readiness of students to work in their chosen profession, the adequacy of the chosen profession to personal characteristics, and the needs and opportunities for developing personal qualities and professional skills in the learning process were analyzed. A positive trend has been established in students’ attitudes toward the professions they are learning and an increase in awareness and interest in the personal and professional development of students in 2023 compared to students in 2020, which is the key aspect to the sustainable development of the state. Recommendations have been developed to increase the level of professional and personal development of a student to achieve full potential in future professional activities: sufficient attention and amount of time for professional and personal development, including vocational guidance; high quality of education and qualifications of teachers, contributing to the formation of a value-based attitude of students to future professional activities; and use of modern technologies and application of active teaching methods.