A Reflection on The Course

The semesters in NUS are extremely short. After thirteen weeks, we are now in the end of the semester, leaving only the final exams awaiting us.

This blog post will signify the end of the professional communication course I took this semester. However, there is still a long way for me to learn and improve on my communication skills.

At first, I did not expect the course to be in a general perspective, I was expecting more of a detailed and specific course, similar to ES2002 Business Communication. However, by starting from a broad and general view of different communication skills gives me a different perspective and insight into what I originally know about communication skills, allowing me to work on certain fields I can improve on in a more organized and systematic approach.

One of the most important lesson I learnt in this course is to know myself better from the eyes of others. One can only know a limited amount about thyself, but with the feedback of others, one can easily identify problems which he/she never noticed and improve on an accelerated rate. This course has given me the opportunity of working and interacting with different people, and also their feedback on my performances. The most insightful part of the course is when I was going through each of my classmates comments and feedbacks, with every comment shedding new light into my thoughts. However, this opportunity is not easily available everywhere, especially when one goes into the working place. It will be a challenge to make use each of this opportunity in the future and build up on it.

Besides that, the resume and application letter writing as well as the interview are also considered one of the best lesson learnt from this course. I would still be clueless if I had not participate and tried them. And this is certainly an area where I could and must improve on. The presentation section provides an extremely good platform for me to improve on my presentation skills, and to grasp the key technique in switching presentation styles in different situation. And most importantly, we get to share our different views on certain issues or stuff, and to think how others think. And of course, all of this could not have been possible without the professional guidance of our tutor, Ms. Lim.

Until now, I still find myself having a hard time trying to communicate via online platforms such as blogging. Trying to find the words and arrange them to express what is going in my head proves a challenge for me. Is there a more efficient way of improving on this besides more practises? Well, that is definitely one of the important things that I can work on for now.

A Thought After The Presentation

The presentation ended two days ago. Everything was smooth, however, I am quite disappointed with my own performance. But it made me think.

Yashfeer, Fang Yong and me are in the same group, presenting on "Improving The Industry Skills of Mechanical Engineering Undergraduates". We have been working for months on this proposal, and during the presentation, I presented on "Ways to Improve The Industry Skills of Mechanical Engineering Undergraduates From The Internship Aspect".

Just a brief recall when I was presenting:

Yashfeer started the presentation first, he did an excellent job. During that time, I was stressing myself to focus on my fluency and pronunciation (which I am pretty bad in), trying to recall every word in every situation, hoping that my performance will be as good or even better than the multiple rehearsals I had the night before. Then, it was my turn. When I started, it was ok, or in other words, according to plan. But as soon as I move on to some of the slides, I suddenly started to choke on some of the words, having these unnatural pauses. And this is the first time after a few years that this feeling fear sparkled in my eyes. I never felt this uneasy and unnatural when presenting before, and this sparkle of fear suddenly cascades into a series of mistakes. And I realized I focused on the wrong direction.

I put in a more than normal effort in preparing this presentation. I was hoping for a breakthrough. I wrote out every word for my speech, and rehearsed for hours until I can close my eyes and still go on presenting while coordinating my slides with my speech. I got to focused in getting every word right and make sure the flow and pace is right, that I missed one really important point that affect my performance significantly: Just being myself.

For all of my previous presentations, I kept on telling myself that to just be myself, present as how I would like to present, present on what I would like to present, simply just connect with the audience, following and leading their chain of thoughts, so that they would understand the main points of the presentation. And the biggest mistake I did for this presentation, is to solely focus on each and every word of the speech, and ignore the connection and interaction between the audience and me.

And for next time, I will be experimenting on myself on how I will balance both of aspects (fluency and connection), perhaps by skipping the script writing and jump into rehearsal instead, and see what can I achieve.

My Application For A Part-time Student Assistant Job Post

Last week was a busy week, and so are the weeks to come.

I found this job post in my mailbox about two weeks ago, a student assistant in sorting and identifying macroinvertebrates in Singapore's freshwaters, mainly in the reservoirs. After further enquiry, I found out that this project is actually a 5-year collaboration with PUB and NUS which aims to conduct a biomonitoring survey possibly in all existing reservoirs.

As a student interested in biodiversity and biomonitoring, I sent in my application, which includes an application letter and resume. Due to technical issues, I am unable to post my resume, so only the application letter is shown below:

LEE GANG
U086000Y
(65)83015833
fechard@gmail.com
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2 September 2010

Mr. Adam Quek Rop Fun
Research Assistant
Department of Biological Sciences
National University of Singapore
14 Science Drive 4
Singapore 117543

Dear Adam,

APPLICATION FOR THE POST OF STUDENT ASSISTANT

I am interested in the position of student assistant in the biomonitoring project which involves the sorting and identification of aquatic macroinvertebrates in Singapore’s freshwater. I saw this position available in an email sent out earlier on 27 August by the department and would like to apply for the position.

I am currently a year three life sciences undergraduate planning to specialize in Biology. I have a vast interest in Biology, especially on how human influence impacts the environment. I have a huge passion for research, which is probably nurtured since young by my father, who is a biologist himself. I was exposed to research during my high school period and even helped out in a small research on the regeneration of forest (by collecting leaf samples) by FRIM (Forest Research Institute of Malaysia).

In the first year of my undergraduate studies, I was admitted to the Special Programme in Science (SPS). I was able to conduct a research on the yellow crazy ants (Anoplolepis gracilipes), which is an invasive ant species found in many areas of Singapore, as part of a research module offer by SPS. Since then, my interest in the invasive biology field and how humans actually affect the environment by different means greatly increased. Currently, I am working on the invasive ant species in Singapore under the supervision of Prof. Richard Corlett as a level 3000 8 MC UROPS. The previous researches conducted exposed me to the rigorous identification process different species, and I hope that this experience will help me in familiarizing the techniques used in sorting and identifying aquatic macroinvertebrates.

This position is extremely attractive to me as it is a rare opportunity to allow the further investigation on the human-environment complex relationship, down to the detailed interspecific interactions. This is even more exciting as I am able to gain an insight in the relationship of the diversity of aquatic invertebrates with the condition of Singapore’s freshwater habitat. My previous research experiences will also be useful in aiding the project.

I would be extremely grateful if I am given the chance to participate in this interesting project. I can be contacted at 83015833 or fechard@gmail.com. Thank you for your time and looking forward to hear a favorable reply from you.


Yours sincerely,
LEE GANG
U086000Y

A Coupled Start

I finally get to celebrate the opening of this new blog after a few days of sleepless nights and infinite workloads. I always wanted to set up a blog to share the things I learned and interesting stuff I see around me, but another side of me keep telling me that I don't have the time. Well, obviously the latter won the struggle that has been going on in my head until now.

So why would I change my mind? Is it because of a reduced commitment for my other various interests? Clearly that won't be the case if my workload just simply doubled this semester.

This blog was supposed to be one of the assignments of a module I took this semester, called "Professional Communication". The module requires all students to post a blog post once every two weeks on a specific topic and also comment on the posts of my fellow classmates. However, to me, this is not just about assignments of a module, but an opportunity for me to start what I long wished to do. So I decided I will not just use this blog to fulfill the assignment requirement of the module (that will be such a wastage to the blog), but also to share my learning journey and interesting stuffs that catches my eyes.

So this is why I decided to title my first ever post in this blog "A Coupled Start".

Nonetheless, I am supposed to post my first post on "Effective Communication Skills". I think I should better start-off by "Why I took up this module?".

I am a person who involves heavily (and enjoyed) in many social and student activities. These activities requires a high level of communication in many instances, especially when we can only discuss and hold meetings online. And to be frank, I am extremely bad when it comes to communicating, especially to a large group or when I have to communicate professionally. There was once when I somehow came up with a badly written email which results in an almost complete chaotic event.

Yes, I have always wanted to improve my professional communication skills, in which I viewed it as the most important skill that you need to master in order to survive and thrive in the society. And I can't belief that I just found out what I want is all offered in this one single module: email writing, resumes, professional letters, interpersonal communication techniques, the platform for trial and errors, and many more! Don't even mention the professional guidance from the tutors and the peer-learning experience.

I have attended two sessions so far and they are amazing! The only downside to it is that the classes are at eight in the morning. For a nocturnal species like me that works most effectively when the sun is down and go to sleep when the sun start rising, that is definitely a huge challenge.

Next Monday will be an anticipated day for my group, as we are going to start our peer-teaching session on "Effective resumes, application letters and personal statement". Really looking forward to that day, and of course, this whole wonderful learning journey!

28 August 2010 (23:52, Singapore)