Post #6

791 points

You must be wondering why I put my title as 791 points instead of my final reflection. I shall clarify myself now. I spent 791 points bidding for this module while others got it for 1 point (source: Priscilla). Initially, my perception of ES2007S then was that it was a course mainly for resume and cover letter writing. I thought to myself that the main take-away from this course should be how to write a good resume and cover letter.

However, over the course of 13 weeks, this course made me learnt more important and useful lessons apart from writing good cover letter and resume. Personally, there are 3 things that I learnt from ES2007S.

Firstly, it is being sensitive to your audience. I think we need to know clearly who our audiences are and what cultural or social background they come from before we can communicate with them effectively. There is no one perfect solution to communicate effectively. Communication is not like a math problem, one plus one may not necessarily be equal to two. This is where being aware of how intercultural and interpersonal conflict occurs can help to minimize miscommunication.

Secondly, it is about being aware of what is our weakness and try to improve on it. The first time I learnt about this was from the resume writing. This is because the first resume I did (which I was sending for internship for the past 2 years) was actually full of flaws. Thanks to Bokai and the others who were assigned to assess my resume, you guys really gave me a very critical and constructive feedback. I really appreciate it. Also, I learnt more weakness from my presentations in class (peer teaching as well as the proposal presentation). My weakness of filler words, ‘looking upwards’ and poor eye contact are made clear to me. Although I am still not completely free of these weaknesses, I am still glad because at least I am aware of it now. I will slowly work on it and I believe I will succeed one day J

Last and the most important take-away from this course is all of YOU. I really enjoyed the setting of our class very much. This is the only course I took in NUS that I can be glad to be part of it.  This is the most worthwhile course I ever took (which definitely justify my 791 bid points). I like it that everyone is not extremely competitive (but surely as efficient and professional) like I seen in my past years in NUS. Ultimately, it’s not the grade that is going to matter the most at the end of the day. I really thank all of you for being sincere and genuine in our weekly interaction. Specially, I want to thank Brad for facilitating in our class discussion and providing us with very useful advice and tips. It’s really heartwarming to be part of this class. Of course, I will miss working with my wonderful group mates, Priya and Bokai (Jimmy aka Bob aka Raymond), I really liked working with you all. I wish everyone the best in your future. Stay happy and positive. Cheers! 

Post #5

Reflection on Oral Presentation 

Hi everyone, I would like to thank all of you for your attention and insights on our presentation today.
I will break down my reflection on the oral presentation into the following two components.

Presentation:

We decided to make our slides simple and abstract because we want our audience to keep their focus on our presentation instead of being distracted by the slides. Furthermore, we do not want to load them with large amount of information. Instead we chose to leave them with a few key points like the problem of overcrowding and bunching and our key solutions. We told a story through a 3^rd person (Jimmy) and used him to further emphasize our point. We thought that would be an innovative way to capture the audience attention. Also, we took relevant photos to fit our storyline which we hoped to help our audience relate better to the story. Personally, I do not think that we oversimplified our slides. The only drawback to this approach is our inability to fully internalize our content and to cope under pressure.   

Delivery:

I am glad that I was able to present the content I aimed to deliver to my audience. Despite going through the main framework of my content for so many times, thinking that I had internalized the content, I still stumbled over one point (when I was discussing the implication of the overcrowding problem). I almost panicked because I did not prepare any proper notes ahead of the presentation and my slides do not provide me any “clues”. Thankfully, I managed to carry on and finish my presentation. While I was presenting, this is the very first time I was trying to be aware of what I was saying and looking (trying to prevent any filler words and maintain eye-contact). Most of the time, I am focusing on the right side of the audience (Zhi Qin’s area). However, I may not be effective enough to engage their attention fully as they are looking at my slides instead of me. As for the left side, I gave a very partial eye contact which I feel I should improve on that. Furthermore, I tried not to “look up” but I still made that mistake. I am a little disheartened because I think these areas could have been improved.  Despite this, I think there is no point crying over spilt milk. There is nothing I can do about my delivery in the presentation at this moment. All I can think of is how I am going to improve and rectify these flaws in my delivery the next time round. As long as I keep trying and don’t give up, I believe I will succeed one day.

Thank you for your time reading this! Have a good rest everyone J