My Reflections ...

Forewarning: This is a really long post.

Being born in a Chinese-oriented family; one who had always been failing English tests; one who memorized her way through General Paper in Junior College; one who failed her Qualifying English Test(QET) and had to go for additional English modules in NUS, picking up ES2007S, ANOTHER english-related module was not an easy choice. Nonetheless, there no single moment in which I have ever regretted taking this module. Through the activities I have done in the class, I have nothing but great memories of the class and will cherish the lessons I have learnt from this class. I believe they are of high importance as these components will carry on even after graduation and into my career in the future.

1. Resume and Application Letter Writing
As a person who had never viewed resumes and application letters to be of much importance, being given the task to peer teach this topic truly opened up my mind on how impactful a good resume can be. I am thankful for the editing efforts contributed by my classmates in spicing up my resume and understand the objective of my resume to market myself well. 

2. Mock Interview and “Elevator” Pitch
These two are the funniest and most terrifying exercises for this module. It is terrifying at the receiving end but enjoyable being the mean interviewers. Though I do feel that we are not given enough trainings to call ourselves experts in handling interviews, I do feel much more confident in going for an interview AND interviewing people. I am acquired with the knowledge on what possible questions I am to expect and trained to think and speak on my feet to impress my interviewers. 

3. Minutes of Meeting, Proposal Writing and Final Oral Presentation (OP)
I was never appointed as a secretary due to my poor writing skills. Being the secretary for my group project certainly threw me out of my comfort zone to look up on the proper way on writing minutes for the team, which I am glad I finally learnt how to. I always assumed Minutes of Meeting to be easy, but there is more to what a GOOD Minutes of Meeting can bring us. For other modules, where proposals are a must, we were never provided with any guidelines on how an impressive proposal should be. We simply get the main idea written down, add some images, line up some references and never to get them back to know our mistakes. In this course, we were actually provided with the proper way to write one and also the chance to amend our mistakes. Last but not least, is our OP. Better late than never, I am glad to understand that there is no such thing as the PERFECT presentation for all. Different presentation serves different needs and objectives that the presenter wants to bring across to the audience or the stakeholders. Now that I understand this important fact, I believe my future presentations would be able to achieve my intended goals.

Throughout the whole course, I believe I did not merely acquire all these straightforward learning outcomes. In addition, I also gained valuable life lessons from my friends and my tutor. Before enrolling into the university, my life had rather been a smooth sailing one. I never once had doubts on any choice that I’ve made and had always been performing to my best in everything I do. Up till the point where I have to decide what to study that dictates my future, I am stuck. I went to architecture and switched to statistics, and to be honest, this is still not what I want. I was in agony every single day of my university life and I was regretting every single choice I made. The competitive spirit in NUS did nothing to ease my agony. University was a cruel place where everyone refuses to help one another just so that you are at the other end of the bell curve where he or she can take advantage of.

However things were different here. In this class, everyone is so helpful and this is the most united class I had ever been to since the start of my university journey. These are the group members who I do not mind having projects through late nights, and these are the classmates I had great lunch times and conversations with. I realized results are not everything in life, but the great experience and strong relationships with people are what that is going to bring one far in future with no regrets. In Professional Communication class, not only are we exposed to how one should communicate professionally, but also how to strike daily conversations and establish true relationships with one another. I am really thankful that Brad tried to make us work with different groups of people for every different assignment so that we will mingle around, rather than forming cliques. 

I am thankful to Han for always challenging my thinking process and consoling me that results are not a good reflection of one’s ability and to always trust myself. I really admire his complex way of looking at things and how he always managed to come up with brilliant questions. Seriously Han, can you stop being so clever? XP

Thank you Ding Ding and Sumea, my 2 exchange group mates who have showed me that even as an exchange student, one can still give his or her best for the sake of others. My friends always warned me not to group with exchange students because their grades do not matter so long they passes. And they are the ones who will be MIA(missing in action) most of the time or present substandard work. However, this was not true for Dingding and Sumea. Both of them were always trying their best to alleviate my work load and worry if they were doing enough so that I can get a good grade. Thank you Sumea and Dingding for showing me the correct way of learning, and I hope to be able to spread such positive attitude on my exchange trip.

To my beloved Huiyun who I always thought I had great affinity with, it is a pity we were never in the same group for any major assignments. However, I am thankful for having you around to have “Singaporean-talks” with me all the time and always giving me that reassuring smiles and nods. 

I will miss the “girls talk” with Minthu, Ronald, Bernard, Han, Rohit and Chandra before class or during lunch at Kou Fu. I really love the chatting sessions and it was fun having you guys that made this class so enjoyable and interesting. 

Thank you, Eric and YongSheng, who I believe are my 2 number 1 blogfans and always providing me with insights through your comments.

Thank you, Sai for always making my day with your dance moves and the never-ending whistling(which annoys Sumea all the time). 

Thank you, Thao for always being so kind and spread that contagious smile of yours throughout the whole course.

Thank you each and every one of you. And thank you Brad for making all these possible.

Evaluation on Oral Presentation

EDITED VERSION: 

 

A big relief for ending my final presentation on a high note! 

I do believe all the trainings from the peer teachings, mock interviews and ‘elevator pitch’ have provided me with greater confidence in myself and the ability to cope under duress. However, despite all these practices, I still felt uneasy and nervous when I have to give the final presentation of this module. [EDIT: help provided by Chandra]

The fact that our group crafted the proposal together have helped us tremendously as each and every one of us were thorough with the content of our proposal and ultimately contributed to the ease in forming our presentation. [EDIT: help provided by Chandra] Though we allocated ourselves with the main bulk of the proposal that we had written, the difficulty of converting a proposal into a presentation is still a difficult task. [EDIT: help provided by Chandra] From our mock presentation, we understood that our presentation should not simply be a replica of our proposal. But rather, a form of a marketing plan where our proposal should be a support to our presentation instead. Hence, we revamped our entire presentation and made it as interesting as possible and tried not to overload it with technical jargons so that our stakeholders would be able to understand. [EDIT: help provided by Chandra] In the event that our stakeholders are interested in our proposed solution, we can then provide them with the technical information that they may be interested in, which is at the back of our fingertips.

Despite so many rehearsals and practices done on my presentation speech (waiting for the bus, meal times and many other occasions),  I still had frayed nerves and at times, felt like giving up. Nonetheless, I am so glad I pulled through in the end!

After my presentation, a few of my classmates commented that there was a stark difference in my presentation style this time round as compared to my previous presentation for my peer teaching. They added that the Shiying that have presented earlier on does not felt like the usual Shiying that they knew. I always thought that I should be formal for such a presentation and had practiced so hard to try and sound professional as I usually talk in a much more animated way due to my character. [EDIT: help provided by Chandra] However, I do feel a little dejected after hearing such a comment because I thought they might mean that ‘I sounded very fake’, and I was trying to ‘act out’ the presentation. Another weakness of my presentation was that I should have included some statistical data to prove and support my points. While I thought that such figures should be minimized in a presentation and tried out narrating more this time round, I realized it was a wrong move. Another improvement I could have done is to sound more convincing and engaging instead. I understand that in a formal presentation is very different from a peer teaching presentation, which is why I tried not to ask questions and it would be awkward to establish any games to entertain the audience, I believe that all these could be achieved if I were a much more dynamic presenter and attract them simply through thought-provoking and impactful use of words and ideas.

Despite all these weaknesses, I am still pretty proud of my performance this time round. 

Firstly, I managed to establish longer eye contact with my audience, especially to Laura, since she was appointed the role of the NUSSU president and she is the person we are trying to get our proposal approved. I am really thankful to Huiyun for always giving me that assuring smile whenever I established eye contact with her. It helped to alleviate my level of nervousness during the presentation.

Secondly, I did not blank out this time and managed to deliver the bulk of my presentation and thirdly, I did not fidget as much as before and tried to develop a stable stature while presenting.

With each presentation, I am becoming an even better presenter. Hopefully by the time that I graduate, I would be ready for THE WORLD.