Final Reflection

It’s the end of the semester and I should be feeling happy (*forget the exams..:P*) but for once in my 3 years of NUS life I am actually feeling sad for not being able to continue with a module… ES2007S was a very fun and enriching module unlike the boring engin core modules that I am destined to take for my next 3 semesters :(

The Beginning
When I was choosing modules for this semester I accidently chanced upon ES2007S and I asked my seniors if the module was beneficial, but no one had ever heard of it, but I was still interested. The most attractive aspect of the module I thought was the BLOG!! Though I wanted to learn how to write a good resume etc but the fact that blogging was given 30% marks was really interesting (I actually thought it was going to be easy…haizzz – how wrong I was)

Coming to ES2007S class for the first time, I really liked the concept of learning by interacting with others, presenting etc. Though I had to change class I actually feel it was for the better since I got to meet all of you :)

The Learning Process
The major skill set I have learnt from this module is the communications skills set (for obvious reasons) – verbal and non-verbal.

Written - Non-Verbal
To be honest, I have not felt majorly apprehensive during presentations or when talking in a large group and my writing skills has been above average as well, so I have always thought that continuing the way I am is just fine, but I realized how wrong I was. During these 3 months I found that I had many flaws, especially in the non-verbal aspect of communication. I noticed this when I received my feedback for the blog and the resume/cover letter that I lacked organization in my writing :( After rectifying the errors pointed out by Ms. Happy and looking back at my past personal statements, resume etc. made me understand the importance of structuring a written statement. Looking back at my 1st resume, it was a complete mess with information practically everywhere but now I feel my resume is so much better and has more relevant information in it.

7C's of Communication
Another aspect I feel I benefited from is the 7C’s of communication. Although all of us have, to some extent, good communication skills I feel that knowing the theory behind effective communication gives us an added advantage over others. I believe most of us developed our communication skills through practical interaction with others but what we have learnt through experience may not give us a complete picture. I really felt a difference in my communication skills after knowing the 7C’s. In a way, the 7C’s has given me a basis from which I can compare to see if I have done well in terms of communicating my message and by doing so I feel I can identify my mistakes more effectively and learn from it.

Presentations
Though it is common sense to most that there are many different ways in which presentations can be made, I actually never knew the ‘real’ (the distinguishing factor) difference between the different kinds of presentation. Even after presenting for the peer teaching session and the final OP I still didn’t realize this difference until Ms. Happy pointed it out. Though the differences are rather subtle, by knowing these differences one can identify which aspect they should concentrate on for that particular presentation which will eventually make it a more effective presentation.

My BIG Thanks :)

After these 3 months, I can see a big difference in my communication skills, thanks to Ms. Happy, my group members – Wei Xiong, Xin Wei and Luigi ‘Louie’ and to the whole class for helping me realize my flaws and improve my skills set. A very BIG thank you to everyone and another BIG thank you to Ms. Happy for being such a wonderful tutor and for making this module very enjoyable. Thank you :)


Cheerios,
Keerth ^^

PS: Sorry for this super long post…

Reflection on Oral Presentation

The picture speaks for itself. I feel it is very important to stay composed under any circumstances. If we are clam and collected we can at least think about what we can do next to rectify the problem :)

Finally the OP is over…yay! Though it was tiring to prepare the slides and rehearse for the OP it was a wonderful experience to learn how to present properly and an even better experience when we were able to learn and rectify our errors. I feel that the effort of me and my group (Wei Xiong and Xin Wei) had paid off and I would like to thank them both for being very helpful and accommodative throughout the process of the project. :D

Preparation:
My group worked well together to prepare for the slides and the presentation. Our presentation slides were simple, and we used key notes to emphasize our points better. I feel this made our presentation easier to understand, in addition we also added pictures and quotes to make the presentation more interesting and I feel the effort has paid off.

Delivery:
Considering that we only finalized our slides after coming to class, I feel we did well. However, I could have slowed down and since I was nervous I forgot to mention some points and I think I pronounced ‘Mao Zedong’ wrong as well! Considering the 7Cs of communication I feel I missed out on the points of clarity and completeness. Having rushed through the presentation I think it must have been a little difficult to understand what I was saying and since I forgot to mention some points I think I missed out on the ‘completeness’ factor as well. For the other aspects such as courtesy, correctness, conciseness and coherence I think I managed fulfill their requirements to some extent. All in all I think my group did a good job in bringing our message across and it is was an enriching experience drafting the proposal and presenting.

As for the question and answer session, I think we managed to answer appropriately for the questions asked.


Cheers,
Keerth :D

Miscommunication

Hi everyone,

Hope you like the cartoon strips, just came across them when I searched for miscommunication.

As we learnt in class, the key reason that causes miscommunication is because we fail to apply the 7Cs of effective communication. I would like to share this experience where I felt that me and team members failed to apply the aspect of coherence in our communication with our professor.

This semester I am doing an engineering core module that is 100% project based. A team of 8 members are grouped together to create a new product as a representative of a MNC company. We have a professor who is our supervisor and we meet him once a week to keep him updated on our project. Since there are 5 IA (industrial attachment) students in our group it is rather difficult for us to meet him during normal school timings. However the professor was accommodative in the timings and allowed us to meet him in the evenings. However, on one occasion when none of the team could make it for the meeting we mailed to ask a change of date to Tuesday early morning for the following week. However, he had replied on Thursday that week, that he would be able to meet us on Friday at 6pm. Our grouped was ok with the timing and prepared for the meeting that was to be held on Friday the following week. However on Friday on the present week we received a mail from him saying he was waiting for a long time and we never showed up. Hence it was natural for him to be angry with us. However, my team had assumed the meeting to be on the following Friday since we had initially asked for a Tuesday meeting for the following week. We were lucky since this professor is a rather understanding person and hence no harm was done, I feel that it was a good lesson for me and my team members. Since then we put in the exact date and day of the meetings in all our mails.

Cheers,
Keerth

Evaluating Intercultural Behavior

This is an experience that my friend conveyed to me when he came back from a business trip in China. He has his own start up company established in Singapore and he has plans to collaborate with China business men to further establish his business. For this reason he accompanied his father’s friend who was a business man in China, for 2 weeks to gain first hand experience about business ethics in China.

His first shock came when he realized that many dealings have bribes involved, bribery in terms of money or in terms of material goods. The manner in which bribes were handled was unique too. Apparently the number of cigarette boxes placed on the table equated to the amount of bribe that is given. When his father’s friend was carrying many boxes of cigarette packs he was confused as to the reason why. He later realized that people use cigarette boxes to show the amount of bribe they were going to offer instead of reaching a verbal consensus.

Another shock came when he travelled to a different part of China (I am not sure about the name of the province). In this part of China, to show that you enjoy the food you have to eat noisily! You should for example slurp your noodles loudly to show your appreciation to the chef for the good food. This was a true shock to him as under normal circumstances eating quietly with minimal noise is considered to be good manners.

This directly contradicted with a French hotel that my friend went to, where the slightest of noise or tinkering of your forks and spoons is considered to be bad manners.

What surprised me when I heard his experience is that, he is a Chinese and he did not know that such customs exists in China. Though his a Singaporean born Chinese I believed there would not be much differences between the customs of Singaporean Chinese and China Chinese. However this does not seem to be the case.

I believe that it is important to understand and appreciate different cultures even though they might be very different to our own.

Different people view culture differences differently, either with a
Negative attitude – Withdrawal and refusal to accept the foreign culture ORPositive attitude – Willingness to understand, to embrace, and to creatively interact with the new culture

I believe taking cultural differences positively will help us adapt to different cultures more easily.


Cheers,
Keerth

Personal Statement

Application Letter Critique

Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

I was the committee chairperson for a CCA in NUS last year. We organized an event called ‘Mastering Interview Session’. It was a workshop to train students on proper conduct and the dos and don’ts during interviews. We got two speakers from company X. After receiving their confirmation, we started our publicity.. We got a good number of 300+ registered students. We then prepared surveys to help us understand what the students were expecting from the workshop. The information was compiled and sent to company X a week before the session.

Two days before the session, company X called and said to postpone the workshop as the speakers were busy. However, we could not do so as the publicity and registrations were done. They said they understand and will make sure the speakers turn up.

On the day of the workshop I received a call from my branch president saying there is a big problem. My CCA is a student branch of an international organization and the company X had sent an email complaining about our student branch’s misconduct, to the main branch. I was shocked to hear this because so far the communications between us have been good and they had even confirmed their coming the day before.

Later the company called me and said they would like to break ties with our club as we have been dealing very rudely. When asked where the communication went wrong they said the speakers were offended by the survey information we had sent. The survey contained information on what the students were interested in, however the speakers had found it to be demining as they thought that we were trying to tell them what to say during the workshop, which was not our intention.

I would like to know what could have been done in this situation, not only from my committee’s point but from the company’s point as well, since they had their own problems for having speakers who were busy.