Reflection on course ES2007s

I can still remember myself facing a hard time deciding whether to take ES2007s at the beginning of the semester as I had already fulfilled all my modules for graduation but was looking to take one module just for self-learning. Through several strong positive recommendations made by my friends, i decided to take it. Reason being, I was more interested in honing my skills for presentations and as well as to explore deeper into communications. I was also tired of taking the typical arts or science or general knowledge modules where we had to compete for the bell curve through studying. I did not want a module because of reasons like scoring better, low difficulty level etc, instead I really wanted a module which held classes that help students understand themselves and the outside world better. I wanted to learn and not just plainly studying day and night for it and then immediately forgotten of when that module ends.

After weeks of classes, I can proudly say I entirely enjoyed the module. Despite the fact that ES2007s coursework involves much presentations and preparation, it was not a module of the lightest workload. However, it is because of these presentations and working together, I felt that i benefited most from the extensive groupwork and collaboration amidst it. Being in the faculty of engineering, we hardly get to work in groups, much less meeting new people to work together on a project.The ES2007S class is not only made up of people from all over NUS across different year of studies, it is also across various faculties as well. As such, through working together with my fellow peers, I got to understand matters in various perspectives which I would probably not be able to do that on my own ever.

I also learnt that I had to be more assertive in my presentations as well as to have better voice projections. One of my regrets is that I probably had not improved in my presentation skills in this course as I always never realised that I am not speaking as loudly as my groupmates until they spoke. I will definitely note this down, and hope to improve on it in my future presentations.

I always looked forward to going for class because I know I will never fail to take away something which may possibly positively impact my life in the future. I never saw the link between communicating professionally, listening effectively to be part of the building of my personal branding till the end of the course. I never realised how crucial it is to be able to realise the importance of these skills to, perhaps, have a slight advantage and better edge in some aspects of life, be it to show a higher emotional intelligence or awareness, to promote interpersonal skills etc. Every single peer review presentation put forth by my coursemates were definitely helpful in guiding me not just in school, in search for my career and future job, but also in life as a person.

Having met some of the most wonderful and fun friends in ES2007S as well, this course has definitely ended my final semester in NUS with a big bang. It goes without saying, I definitely would HIGHLY recommend this course to my friends. The life skills and experience one can take away is definitely wonderful. :)

A sincere thank you to Dr Radhika and the class: Reynold, Oliver, ChongSheng, Huiping, Isabel (have a safe flight!), Mingyan, Grace, Qu Kui, Wei Rong, Liying and Lin Han!

Reflections

My team's oral presentation took place just a few days ago. It was the final presentation for the ES2007S module and I looked forward to it as the purpose of this presentation was somewhat different from the previous ones. This presentation was something new to me too, which was about promoting and putting forth a new idea to the class. Previously, we were only teaching the class on tips/guidelines to various topics like job interview skills, resume writing etc.

Throughout the presentations so far, I always have a few key factors in order to prepare them for the class. As taught in class, I always try to cater my presentation to my audience, my peers. I do not try to throw jargons in but instead, I always love to involve them in any way I can. This can be termed as engaging the audience which is something I perceive to be crucial in order to get the audience's attention. I always hope that whatever I prepare to bring to the class, will be something which majority of the class, at least, can relate to. I feel that this could be one of the strongest point in my presentations thus far and I hope that my peers have enjoyed it as well.

On the contrary, I felt like I had not improved from my previous peer reviews. I always try to project my voice but yet come across as sounding not as confident as my fellow group mates. I will continue to strive in this area as being confident-sounding can help to boost my entire presentation on a whole as well.

Lastly, with respect to doing the actual presentation itself, I typically prefer to use the powerpoint slides. However, I try not to dull my presentation by putting as little words as possible, and also to keep it less lengthy too.

Through several peer reviews from others and of others, ES2007S has helped me realised that I have some skills which I lack of which may not have been mentioned by my fellow peers. However, communication still remains a key factor to presenting yourself to friends, future clients and bosses etc. It is afterall one of our primary tools to interact with another human being and should be worked upon to the best of our ability.

Dear ES peers, we've made it this far. Im sure everyone here will be able to bring home at least a pointer or two to improve on our communication skills. Here's wishing everyone all the best for your future endeavours. Let communication empower us for the better! :)

Thank you to my dear groupmates Oliver, CS, Reynold and of course to the two volunteers Grace and Linhan :D

Fostering InterCultural Communication

One of the best experiences I've had in life is when i had the chance to join a committee within my faculty to plan for the 2010 7th Global Student Forum (GSF), an international engineering forum held annually, This event took place at the Marina Bay Sands. As a committee member, I was responsible to look to the accomodation and logistics matters of the SPEED club members, which comprised of over 30 people from all over the world and were here to take part in the GSF.

Throughout the week long period of hosting these international members, other than facilitating official matters like registration for the event, checking into the hostels/hotels, there was also the 'casual' side of it where we brought our new found friends around Singapore for food and exploration.

Through this one-week event, I had met so many people. Before the event kick-started, I had made it a point to mingle with as many people as I could to get out of my comfort zone, as well as to gain more knowledge about the world and its people. Most of these people in GSF have created a deep impression in my peers and I as they were people who want to make a difference to the society and the world. People from different backgrounds are exposed to different environments, hence possessing a variety of wants, needs and aspirations. Ie. The Ugandan who always seeks to improve his society and country, such as promoting the idea of compulsory education for the children or even simple things which we took for granted like having sanitary water sources in the neighbourhood. And there was the Americans and Europeans who seeked to improve technology via automation or programms or to spread their knowledge of technology to more people.
It was really interesting to see how everyone beared the same intention to improve the world, yet they saw different aspects of how to do these improvements due to the very nature of where they came from.

As this event was held during a school week, I only had the time to be there physically in the night. We brought them to food markets and hawker centres and ordered a variety of foods. By the 3rd night, I started to find out more on the impact brought about by intercultural behavior. I made it a point to go to every single table to ask them how the food was and what they thought of it. Just listing a few interesting points: the Ugandan I spoke to loved how unique the hainanese chicken rice was, the Portugese and Mexicans could not believe we ate frogs' leg porridge and refused to eat it, most of the Americans, as most of us may already know, thought that the durian fruit smelled like socks and dirty clothings. etc etc.

The GSF event is one of the most rewarding academic event which I have helped out at. Perhaps it could be due to the reason that this is an international event which involves all the countries all over the world and hence, allows me to meet international people. The most important lesson which I had taken away from this event, was that I had learned how to speak to people from different backgrounds eg. nationalities and religions, with a higher sense of awareness and sensitivity.

hi guys, this is my resume attached as screenshot for your feedback!

if its a little too grainy for your viewing, please zoom in to refrain from straining your eyes. hold on to the ctrl button and at the same time, use your mouse to scroll up.

thanks so much! :)

Application Letter

Ling Li Ting Cheryl

BLK 123#01-234

Ang Mo Kio Ave 2
Singapore 123456

(+65)90487745
lingcheryl89@hotmail.com
8 February 2012

Alice Tan (Ms.)
Senior Human Resources Specialist (HR Business Partner)
Human Resources
Merck Pte. Ltd.

Dear Ms Alice Tan,

Position of Business Support Executive

I refer to the application for the Business Support Executive position in Merck Millipore. I'm a final year Chemical Engineering student from the National University of Singapore (NUS). I am highly interested in working, learning and being a part of the highly driven and challenging environment in the company.

Firstly, the diversity in Merck entices me as I enjoy meeting and working with new people. Having studied in NUS, I had opportunities to interact with peers from various races, nationalities and cultural backgrounds. I have worked well in a team with 2 Chinese for laboratory works for 1 year, to be on an overseas field trip in Shanghai with a group of approximately 20 students and additionally, under the mentorship and collaboration with Indonesians and Chinese Researchers during my attachment at A*STAR Institute of Chemical and Engineering Sciences for 6 months.

Secondly, on top of self-learning, I also have a passion in leading and coaching peers. I was a leader in many of my co-curricular activities such as Fencing and the Girl Guides’ group. As the Captain and Trainer, I led and motivated several less experienced peers through encouraging them to sign up for competitions despite it being daunting for novices. To improve myself, I communicated and exchanged ideas with external club and national fencers, as well as learned from them. In the Girl Guides’, as the Patrol Leader whom was in-charge of the progress and welfare of more than 8 members. I was constantly aware of their progress report and encouraged them to take on self-initiated projects and awards out of the norm.

In sync with Merck’s dedication to continuous drive to improve and innovate, I am constantly on the lookout to propose better solutions to improve my working environments. Be it a school project or in a workplace, I always feel that with the ever-changing workforce and people’s needs, improvements of any scale or form, can always be made. Having performed laboratory works at A*STAR, I always sought for improvements in every task I perform, such as reducing the time taken even for the simple task of samples weighing. As a part-time service crew at Udders Ice Cream Pte Ltd, I always looked to increase work efficiency and customers’ satisfaction such as implementing the concept of specialization at peak hours, looking out for customers with special needs etc.

Lastly, I am enticed in working in a fast-paced and challenging environment. Having been placed in stressful working environments before, such as handling Tax Compliance forms in KPMG and Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore, I believe that I have adequate composure and working attitude to drive me to strive hard in demanding working environments.

I sincerely hope that I would be considered for the recruitment of the Business Support Executive position. I can be contacted at 9xxxxxxx (Mobile) and also via email at lingcheryl89@hotmail.com.

Thank you so much for your consideration.

Yours Sincerely,

Cheryl Ling

A Love-Hate Relationship with Social Media

Most of us in this century have, in one way or another, utilized social media as a communication tool. Without me explicitly stating, I believe most of us understand the advantages of social media. Simply stating, social media has given us the ease of communication through crossing various social circles, especially via the internet. However, I’d also like to remind everyone and myself of the very same fact that social media is a great form of communication tool for spreading messages widely and quickly to anyone, could be detrimental as well.

I am someone who is practically dependent on social media as I see it as one of the greatest way to keep in touch with local and global news, and most importantly to be kept updated about my friends' thoughts and their lives. However, being that, I almost always forget the nature of online written communication. That is, it is 1) possible to be misread with the incorrect tone and emotions, on top of the reader's assumptions 2) possible to be misread especially if your message does not address a specific person.

There was one afternoon where I was irritated by the constant squabbling by two friends, to the extent that I could not study anymore. I casually changed my website's status online to 'GROW UP GUYS.' and did not think too much about it as the both of them do not have an account on the website. However that night, I received furious text messages from my sibling abt the website. She thought that I was talking about her quarrel with her boyfriend, and asked me to mind my own business. I wanted to clarify it immediately face to face but she was already asleep. Feeling absolutely enraged by her messages and the fact that she didn't confront me face to face, I replied back furiously. She then apologised immediately the next day through texting me, and asked if I was still mad at her. However I didn't reply her message as I was still mad at her for being so ridiculous. I needed a day to cool off and was only ready to speak to her at night. Out of my expectations, when I reached home that night, she yelled at me and we fought again. It broke into a physical fight and it ended up with her not coming home for 4 days! When she did, she apologised and explained. I sat and listened to her for an hour. We chat and spoke for hours. It turned out that she was always too stressed and because she doesn't know how to verbalize her thoughts, she couldn't begin to confide. The night which everything happened was a trigger to her release of emotions. I encouraged her to speak to me, because communicating needs practice. I also added on that if she found difficulty in doing so, she could write to me through text messages, emails or even through facebook messages. She felt better and was also more encouraged to talk to me thereafter.

What would you do to resolve this tension between you and your elder sibling? Was there any better actions I could have taken or something I could say to prevent from happening? Thanks for reading! Hope to hear from anyone about what you have to feedback on.

Effective Communications

Having worked in several jobs before, ranging from a service staff at an ice cream shop to a tax officer at one of the Big 4 and IRAS to a translator at a consulting firm, i would guarantee anyone that effective communications come into play without you even realising it. I first started out working in secondary school, where I definitely struggled when i interacted with senior staff. I found problems connecting with them as I lacked in work experience and maturity, as well as the fact that I had so much queries on my mind as well. However, with several trials and errors, not forgetting the fact that I was really young and hence quickly forgiven if i made mistakes, I managed to find my way to communicate with my mentors and colleagues well enough to maintain a friendly relationship with them.

What I'd like to say is that: Effective communications plays a big role in all of our lives, it is just about noticing it or not. However, I believe that at this age, most of us should have already noticed that effectively communicating with another party (be it your friends, an acquaintance, your lecturers, your employers, a stranger.) comes into your lives everyday.

For me, after taking several courses on communicating and presenting myself, I have come to realise that subconsciously, before I speak to someone, certain questions go through my head. Questions like 'how should i start this conversation?' 'Will the way I speak offend or please him/her?' 'Will he/she be interested in what I have to share?'

I believe that effectively communicating with another person comes with respect and knowledge, on top of the context of what either party is trying to bring across.

Respect: Being considerate in the way the person thinks, the background the person comes from. Whether the person is someone open-minded or someone more on the conservative side, it makes a difference. Whether the person comes from a strong religious background and family or whether he is a free thinker, makes a difference. Respecting every aspect of what he or she does is equivalent to respecting who he or she is.

Knowledge: To communicate well, it is best to know what to say and what not to say. Overlapping the points on respecting the other party, it is good to know what are the ‘to do’s and the ‘not to do’s towards certain people, cultures, religions and even occupations. Knowing what to do and how to behave in front of someone else, affects the way the message is brought across.

All in all, I believe that effective communication is a double-edged sword. It can help you gain connections and foster good relationships with anyone at anywhere, whereas if neglected at anytime, it can jeopardize relationships and reflect badly on oneself.

On a side note, I would strongly encourage everyone reading this to take up the courses held by NUS Career Centre. If you can, do take up the full package as early as possible before you do your job search in your final year. One of the courses involve communications, and it was a refreshing experience as we had to speak in front of the class and a video camera. This was definitely daunting and it gave me the jitters. However, it is a good way to find out how you look and sound to your audience! :)