Final Reflection

As we come to the end of the semester and the end of this module, my understanding of the value of effective communication skills remains unchanged. To me, developing effective communication skills is always important as one is constantly meeting new people and having to communicate to them. By making the effort to upgrade and improve one’s skills in communication, we will be able to better convey messages to people around us and thus achieve more meaningful and happier relationships.

To be honest, I bided for this module initially as it has no exams and I could use my programme points to bid for it (I was using the points in my general account to bid for Natural Heritage!). Although I love to read, I was always intimidated and daunted by the task of writing as I feel that languages in general is a form of art – something that I would like to appreciate and admire but not create. Other than my own diary which I have kept since I was young, I never liked writing in school as I felt that the grading of our work is rather subjective and sometimes depends on the liking of our teachers. For that reason, I have always avoided modules that involve tons of writing in the university (where we had more freedom in choosing the things we learn), and stuck close to things I felt safe with, such as mathematics and science, which are more certain and definite. That is why I am doing engineering!

However, after taking this module (albeit being attracted by the wrong reasons initially), I have gained so much confidence in myself when it comes to writing, be it for formal cases such as reports, business letters, job application letters and email correspondences, or less formal situations such as blog posts. (:

From the whole experience of constructing our survey all the way to our presentation for our research project, I have learnt so much; I am now able to hold group project meetings efficiently and productively by following an agenda and also follow-up easily through the use of notes of meeting. As this was taught at the start of the semester, I was able to transfer the use of these skills to four of my other projects for this semester, which I benefited greatly from and saved me a lot of time. Being an engineering student, I was used to churning out lab reports for the numerous experiments we had to conduct since the start of Year Two. However, I was amazed by how much I learned from the formal report writing as there was so much more requirements to it. Initially, I liked the fact that there was a fixed structure for writing the formal report, which was so much less ambiguous than the lab reports and papers that I usually have to write. But I have to admit that the whole process was quite taxing as Dinidu and I had to stay up the entire night to write our findings and recommendations while trying to be coherent! (Yes we know it is our own fault for being so last minute!!) It all ended with the presentation, which I thought went alright but am starting to have second thoughts after reading the comments on my individual performance. -Cringes =X

I felt that the resume and interview skills were the most important takeaways from the module since these were the practical skills that could determine our future. Ultimately I have learnt that any interview takes with it a huge slice of luck, so it is best not to read too much into all the rejections but focus on the positives from all the interviews.

All in all, I am grateful for being in Brad’s class along with all my lovely classmates (yes I really think each and everyone of you is lovely!) as I am sure everyone has in one way or another, contributed to my learning and made this whole experience such an enjoyable one. Without any of you, the interactions in class or in our whole blogging arena would have been entirely different and incomplete. Thank you all for such a wonderful time, and thank you Brad, for the patience and guidance that you have shown us.

My Oral Presentation

First and foremost, I would like to thank Sarah, Dinidu and Moses for being such lovely people! It was so easy to work with them, be it for the first part of the report as well as coming together to prepare for our oral presentation, which I felt was not too bad! (:

Overall, I felt that our group’s presentation was quite professionally done not just in terms of our dressing (we were trying to mimic Men in Black with suits and all; and we would have donned shades if not that it would affect our vision and eye contact with the class!) but also in our method of delivery. I felt that each of us were ready and prepared with our parts that we were to present on, and it helped that we rehearsed the night before so as to anticipate any problems that may crop up during our actual presentation. Also, our group knew our project well enough to handle the Q&A session with confidence.

Personally, I thought that I could have been more courageous by not holding on to the piece of paper that contained the list of things I wanted to convey to the audience. Although I was prepared with my part of the presentation, I still held on to that piece of paper as I was afraid I might blank out halfway and forget my points. That has resulted in my eyes flicking to the paper more often than I should have – a bad habit that I have yet to correct. Also, I thought I might have unconsciously rocked back and forth, but then again, I wouldn’t know if I had as it would have been done unconsciously! Aside from that, I thought I had delivered my part quite well with confidence, eye contact and appropriate references to the slides. For the slides, I had created my part while keeping in mind what Brad had told us in class, and tried not to put too many words in it.

In conclusion, I am rather pleased with our group’s (and also my individual) performance and I thought we have delivered our message quite effectively through this presentation! (: