The email below was sent by a student from a particular department in the Faulty of Engineering to a Management Assistance Officer in the Office of External Relations of the same faculty regarding students helpers for the open house.
__________________________________________________________
From: Alicia Tan
Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 8:42 AM
To: John Lee
Cc: Paul Koh; Shawn Lim; Clara Cho
Subject: Students helping for open house
Dear John,
Here are 4 people that can help out at the open house and their respective details. In summary, its 3 people on Sat, 2 on Sun. Do refer to details below on their available time slots.
Do let us know if you require us to attend any briefing sessions, when to collect the T-shirts and any other details. I've cc them this email as well, so you can easily reply to all of us.
Thank you very much.
Regards,
Alicia Tan
__________________________________________________________
Firstly, Alicia should have included her department in the subject title as the reader is a Management Assistance Officer in the Office of External Relations in the Faulty of Engineering and is most probably in charge of more than one department of students. By doing so, the reader would be able to immediately identify that these students would be helping out with that particular department’s booth and not wait to read the entire email before figuring it out.
The salutation used in this case seemed to be inappropriate as John was not a friend but someone Alicia was collaborating with. She should have addressed him as Mr Lee.
The overall content of the email was concise and complete except for some grammatical errors such as “Here are 4 people that can help out…” which should be “Here are 4 people who can help out…” and “In summary, its 3 people on…” which should be “In summary, there are 3 people on...”
Finally, she could have signed off with the department and faculty she was from instead of just stating her name, which may not bear much significance to the reader. Also, it would be useful for the reader as she did not mention her department in the subject title.
The email could have looked like:
__________________________________________________________
From: Alicia Tan
Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 8:42 AM
To: John Lee
Cc: Paul Koh; Shawn Lim; Clara Cho
Subject: Students Helpers for Open House (MSE department)
Dear Mr Lee,
There are 4 student helpers for the open house and their respective details have been listed below. There will be 3 helpers on Saturday and 2 helpers on Sunday. Please refer to their details below on their available time slots.
Kindly let us know if we are required to attend any briefing sessions or if there are any further instructions.
Thank you very much.
Regards,
Alicia Tan
Material Science & Engineering
Faculty of Engineering
__________________________________________________________
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
Resolving Interpersonal Conflict
This incident happened to me when I was in Year 2 Semester 1 (3 semesters ago) when I first started taking level 2 core modules in Material Science & Engineering. There was laboratory work for a few of these modules and we were assigned our partners according to our matriculation number. This meant that we had to do all our experiments and reports together with our partners and I shall refer to mine as Jon.
Previously in Year 1, Jon and I were acquaintances and he had seemed like an easy-going person to me. After the first experiment, we had 2 weeks before our first report was due for submission and a viva was to be carried out. For those who may not know, a viva is an oral examination with our professors or lecturers on our laboratory report to make sure that we actually did the report (and experiment) ourselves and that we understood whatever that was done. Even though guidelines were given to us, we were both unsure of what was exactly required and how to go about doing things. Hence, we decided to meet up a few times to churn out the report together. The first viva went SO badly that all I can say now to emphasize the extent of its awfulness is that we might as well have not gone for it. Immediately after the torturous viva ended, he was very cold towards me and he ran off after muttering something about having to rush off for an appointment. We did not talk after that.
The next time I saw him was during our scheduled laboratory session the following week. We were both sitting around waiting for our demonstrator to start the experiment and avoiding any sort of contact when he suddenly came up to me and placed his handphone in front of me. He had typed a message that says “I hope I won’t have to do 80% of the work the next time round.” Imagine how astounded and dumbfounded I was. I simply sat there reading his message, not knowing how in the world to react to this baffling human form.
Let me list down the reasons as to why I was appalled:
1. We did everything together and there was no division of work. So I could not see where his “80%” came from.
2. Our report was horrible; we did not write it in proper format, we gave short answers to the discussion questions, and most importantly, the answers we gave were wrong. I felt that we did not do enough research on the topics and I did not see why he should put the blame on me when things went awry. Our report was very short and we only spent very little time on it. So how does one calculate 80% of that? It probably was not very much.
How was I supposed to react? I definitely did not agree with him, and I really wanted to share how I felt about this with him. But I found it hard to do so without offending him and it would most likely lead to an argument. I did not want to have a quarrel with a course mate (especially when our course had only around 40 people) as it would be very awkward in the future. So what was I suppose to do?
Previously in Year 1, Jon and I were acquaintances and he had seemed like an easy-going person to me. After the first experiment, we had 2 weeks before our first report was due for submission and a viva was to be carried out. For those who may not know, a viva is an oral examination with our professors or lecturers on our laboratory report to make sure that we actually did the report (and experiment) ourselves and that we understood whatever that was done. Even though guidelines were given to us, we were both unsure of what was exactly required and how to go about doing things. Hence, we decided to meet up a few times to churn out the report together. The first viva went SO badly that all I can say now to emphasize the extent of its awfulness is that we might as well have not gone for it. Immediately after the torturous viva ended, he was very cold towards me and he ran off after muttering something about having to rush off for an appointment. We did not talk after that.
The next time I saw him was during our scheduled laboratory session the following week. We were both sitting around waiting for our demonstrator to start the experiment and avoiding any sort of contact when he suddenly came up to me and placed his handphone in front of me. He had typed a message that says “I hope I won’t have to do 80% of the work the next time round.” Imagine how astounded and dumbfounded I was. I simply sat there reading his message, not knowing how in the world to react to this baffling human form.
Let me list down the reasons as to why I was appalled:
1. We did everything together and there was no division of work. So I could not see where his “80%” came from.
2. Our report was horrible; we did not write it in proper format, we gave short answers to the discussion questions, and most importantly, the answers we gave were wrong. I felt that we did not do enough research on the topics and I did not see why he should put the blame on me when things went awry. Our report was very short and we only spent very little time on it. So how does one calculate 80% of that? It probably was not very much.
How was I supposed to react? I definitely did not agree with him, and I really wanted to share how I felt about this with him. But I found it hard to do so without offending him and it would most likely lead to an argument. I did not want to have a quarrel with a course mate (especially when our course had only around 40 people) as it would be very awkward in the future. So what was I suppose to do?
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Effective Communication Skills
Why developing effective communication skills is important to me...
Communication allows us to impart and exchange our thoughts, opinions and feelings through speech, writing or signs with the people around us. By doing so effectively, we are able to express and represent ourselves correctly and accurately, avoiding unnecessary misunderstandings which can be frustrating.
Personally, at this stage of my life, developing effective communication skills is probably all the more important as I am constantly meeting new people whom I have to work with (such as doing projects or carrying out experiments) or live with everyday (such as in hall). Also, as I proceed to enter the working society in the very near future, it would be to my advantage should I be able to articulate my ideas to my employers and colleagues in a befitting manner so as to have an enjoyable experience at work altogether.
As far as I know, I am a rather frank and outspoken person, and this has led me to face many pleasant and should I say not-so-pleasant situations. I try to be tactful and think before I speak most of the time but when it comes to those who are closer and whom I am more comfortable with, I tend to voice out my thoughts as soon as they appear in my head without much deliberation.
I recall one recent incident with my younger brother, when I was home during one of the weekends (I stay in hall on weekdays). My family and I were watching the television and I was being engrossed in the programme when my brother kept bugging me with questions regarding my handphone as he was considering getting one like mine. I answered them with one or two-word answers, neither giving him much attention nor taking note of my tone and gestures. After several questions, he suddenly burst out in an injured tone saying, “Why do you talk to me like I’m an idiot!” and that finally got my head snapping away from the television set to his direction. I was genuinely shocked at his outburst and simply replied that I was not and had no intention of making him feel that way. I could tell that it did nothing to appease his anger and since he did not say anything else, I decided to keep quiet just to give him time to cool off. Looking back, I guess I should have been more tactful and not say things like “that’s rather obvious right (even in a chiding tone)” although I really meant no harm. I think I took it for granted that people close to me, especially someone as close as a brother, would not take offence at anything I say knowing me well and knowing that I would never hurt them in any way. Things would probably have been fine if I had just the sensitivity to turn my head in his direction so he could tell from my expression that I was chiding him in an affectionate and not a condescending manner.
This incident illustrates how important effective communication is to me, when someone so close can misinterpret my intentions, let alone people whom I have just been acquainted with. And this is why we should all learn to develop our communication skills! (:
Communication allows us to impart and exchange our thoughts, opinions and feelings through speech, writing or signs with the people around us. By doing so effectively, we are able to express and represent ourselves correctly and accurately, avoiding unnecessary misunderstandings which can be frustrating.
Personally, at this stage of my life, developing effective communication skills is probably all the more important as I am constantly meeting new people whom I have to work with (such as doing projects or carrying out experiments) or live with everyday (such as in hall). Also, as I proceed to enter the working society in the very near future, it would be to my advantage should I be able to articulate my ideas to my employers and colleagues in a befitting manner so as to have an enjoyable experience at work altogether.
I recall one recent incident with my younger brother, when I was home during one of the weekends (I stay in hall on weekdays). My family and I were watching the television and I was being engrossed in the programme when my brother kept bugging me with questions regarding my handphone as he was considering getting one like mine. I answered them with one or two-word answers, neither giving him much attention nor taking note of my tone and gestures. After several questions, he suddenly burst out in an injured tone saying, “Why do you talk to me like I’m an idiot!” and that finally got my head snapping away from the television set to his direction. I was genuinely shocked at his outburst and simply replied that I was not and had no intention of making him feel that way. I could tell that it did nothing to appease his anger and since he did not say anything else, I decided to keep quiet just to give him time to cool off. Looking back, I guess I should have been more tactful and not say things like “that’s rather obvious right (even in a chiding tone)” although I really meant no harm. I think I took it for granted that people close to me, especially someone as close as a brother, would not take offence at anything I say knowing me well and knowing that I would never hurt them in any way. Things would probably have been fine if I had just the sensitivity to turn my head in his direction so he could tell from my expression that I was chiding him in an affectionate and not a condescending manner.
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