All Good Things Have To Come To An End

What a journey it had been! Through this module, I definitely picked up a lot of important skills and lessons that I know would benefit me in time to come. The whole purpose of me taking this module was to be able to acquire important skills like learning how to write good application letters and resumes, being able to express myself well and excelling in job interviews. And I believe I was able to learn all these throughout these 13 weeks, in one way or another. (:

Communication/life skills

For me, I believe I am now able to communicate with people better. Learning how to communicate effectively and how to NOT communicate ineffectively, I am confident that I would be able to transmit my intended messages to others more clearly as well. Comprehending all the skills to ensure more effective communication, I’ve learnt how to prevent occurrences of communication breakdown. More importantly, I’ve also learnt to stop ASSUMING as it’s a bad habit of mine that I should put a stop to. (:

The most significant thing I’ve gained is probably learning to work better with others. After working with different groups of people on different projects, I’ve come to realise that it’s not an easy feat working with people that have very different working habits compared to mine. In my opinion, compromise, cooperation and having common goals are most important in ensuring successful teamwork. Furthermore, working with people from other cultures also taught me to be more understanding towards others. It also gave me more exposure on how working with different colleagues in the future would be like.

Interactions in Class

I took up this module with 4 of my good friends, Alvin, Sylvester, Xiaoshi and Elgin. In the end, I’m glad that we didn’t really stick to each other during class. When I first stepped into the tutorial class on week 2, I looked around and felt that this would definitely be an interesting module and indeed, it was. Having classmates from all sorts of different backgrounds was really an experience and something different from the usual chemistry major students that I see everyday. Being a more vocal person, I always like to express my views in class. And it is always interesting to listen to other’s views on different issues as well. I guess that’s what makes small group tutorials a greater learning platform. It is precisely the fact that it consists of interactive learning, which allows us to learn from one another. Positive peer interaction, as what I’ve learnt from my research project. (:

Blogging is also a great way to express any views and opinions that we are not able to in class and it helps me to understand my classmates better. It really is a joy to read their blog posts, and to appreciate their fine language used, in a way increasing my level of writing skills too. Being proficient in effective communication through verbal means is definitely not enough, being able to communicate effectively through non-verbals and through written means are what complete the whole package. Through feedback from my classmates, I feel more confident of my writing now as well.

Overall learning

This module is really filled with potential benefits, with so much to gain and nothing to lose. In my opinion, it has been planned really well, with the aim of nurturing every aspect of effective communication to the students. Though I know that Brad expects quite a fair bit from all of us, I believe it is all in the intention of making us successful people in the future and I do appreciate it. (: However, with the amount of work required, I feel that this module should have at least 6 modular credits assigned to it! Haha. Jokes aside, I’m really glad to have taken this module, which I am sure to recommend to my friends as well. Thank you ES2007S! (:

Best Group Ever (:

Finally, everything is over. Feeling relieved, yet with a tinge of sadness as well. All the time spent on this project was torturous but yet enjoyable at the same time. Not forgetting that we had to come back to school last Saturday and Sunday, causing us to effectively have a 7-day work week. But, the stress, the jokes, the times we had, would definitely be etched in my memory forever. I feel really blessed, to have this combination of people in my group and I would like to thank them for being with me through this whole journey. You know who you are. (:

Preparation

With the handing up of our proposal just one week ago, we effectively only had one week to prepare for our presentation. The fact that all of us were tied down with other schoolwork didn't make things any easier either. We came up with many ideas to enhance our presentation and to improve the visuals, but we decided that the skill of eloquence and effective presentation was what Brad was looking for. Furthermore, when Vinod introduced Prezi to us and with the idea of making a video to illustrate the gravity of our problem statement, we felt that these were sufficient to complement our presentation.

After spending a lot of time editing our Prezi, we finally got down to rehearsing our speech. For me, I didn’t have a physical script but probably due to the many times I have recited my part, I was able to memorize it by heart. Knowing that persuasiveness is the way to go, I tried to draft my speech to make our proposal sound as convincing as possible. With my part being on benefits, it was even more important that I sounded persuasive. My part initially overshot the time limit to about over 8minutes. However, Alvin helped me by making a great point that I shouldn't be talking about limitations when we are selling our proposal and this helped me in the editing of my speech. It is times like this when we help each other that I feel that that's what group members are there for. (: With countless rehearsals, we were still not quite prepared for the actual event. We even met up at 7am on the actual day to rehearse one final time. The extent that we went for this project really marvels me.

Delivery

For sure, I felt I could do a better job. Watching the recording, I realized I stumbled a few times where I shouldn’t have. My posture should have been better as well. But more importantly, despite countless reminders to myself, I realized I was (again!) talking too quickly. Hopefully, I sounded clear to the class and that they were able to understand what I was presenting. Taking Vinod's advice of making short pauses here and there, I tried to do it during the presentation but it didn't seem as good as during rehearsals. I also realized that I was constantly looking at the screen when I did not have to refer to it at all. Perhaps, it was due to my nervousness. However, I felt I was able to emphasize on certain important parts in my speech and that I was also able to project my voice quite well, sounding clear though fast. Hopefully, I was able to execute that element of persuasiveness.

Use of slide ware and audiovisuals

Taking the hint of not using the usual PowerPoint, we took up Vinod's idea of using Prezi. But then again, we were slightly skeptical about it as well as we were all new to the program. Thinking Prezi was something special that most people might not have seen it, we met our first setback when we realized that the other group was using Prezi as well. However, we decided to go ahead with it anyway and to make the best out of it. Despite the limited time we had, we also decided to make a video to illustrate the evidences of the lack of career skills in students, because we felt that seeing is definitely believing. For fear that the audio in the classroom would not work, we thought of rehearsing in the actual classroom during the weekend, but we weren't able to do so. So, to prevent any technical issues, we decided to bring our own speakers instead and I'm glad that everything went smoothly in the end.

Before I end off, I would like to express my utmost gratitude and appreciation to my beloved group. Thank you so much for everything. I'm glad that we had a common goal in mind, that led us to working well with each other. No doubt there were some unhappiness here and there, but I'm glad things eventually went well. Once again, I am really glad to have known you guys and hope you enjoyed this whole process as much as I did. ((:

ORAL PRESENTATION FEEDBACK FOR ALIBABA! (:

Hi all! Once again, thank you for your kind attention during Alibaba's presentation on career skills. Alvin, Xi Xi, Vinod and myself, thank you for your time, as well as the insightful questions asked during the Q&A session. We hope you enjoyed it! (: Do feel free to drop any comments or feedback about presentation as we will value them indefinitely. (:

Attached is the video that we made to further illustrate the problem of the lack of emphasis on career skills in NUS and the indifferent attitudes of students towards career skills. Do take a look at it and enjoy! (:

Expectations, expectations

Its been a long time since I last spent time on my blog. This semester would probably be the most hectic one for me. Having to juggle so many things throughout this 12 weeks really pushed me beyond my limits. And just when I thought I could take a breather, exams are just in 3 weeks. However, though this course was really demanding, I have never once regretted taking it ever before. It certainly taught me many invaluable things that I know would last me a lifetime. More importantly, I am grateful to have Alvin, Vinod and Xi Xi as my team members. Having them with me through this whole journey, was what made me push on. I just can't ask for more and I thank you Brad, for blessing me with such great team members. (:

I will keep more of my reflections on this course and the OP for another time. Actually, the main point of this post, is to express my thoughts on an issue that Brad was talking about a few weeks ago, but I just couldn’t find the time to blog about. He said that conflicts through ineffective communication, usually arise due to the difference in expectations. I cannot help but agree more on that. For me, I feel that expectations are the root cause to every inter-personal conflict actually. More often than not, we always engage in conflicts due to occasions when people fall short of our expectations. Disappointments would then ensue. Hence, I came to a conclusion a few days ago, that when our expectations are lowered, we naturally become happier people. But then again, I can't help but rethink, that without expectations, people wouldn't progress at all. Expectations, whether a boon or a bane, is something that is just part and parcel of life. Too much or too little of something is never too good. I would say, the same goes for expectations too! (: