Blogpost #6 : Final Reflection on ES2007S Professional Communication

The 13 weeks have passed so quickly as usual. Now I am very sure that I did not make the wrong choice to take this module during the bidding period last August. This module has taught me a lot, from simple communication with friends who are of a diverse nationality to communicating with authoritative figure in the real world. I believe the basis to all relationships is having an effective communication that enables us to express ourselves exactly as we intended to, eliminating possible misunderstandings and assumptions that could easily breed discontentment and disharmony. This has become an important issue today due to increasing economic integration and interdependence of countries.

These 13 weeks have equipped me with the skills of writing, the 7Cs that we have always emphasized. Easy as each C seems, to master them really take lots of practice and effort. However, I believe that it would be worth the effort as these are skills very relevant to us when we move on to the working world where everything is not as structured as they are in school. My application letter, resume and interview skills could make or break a potential career I can develop with a company. Oral presentations provided me with great experience and opportunity to evaluate and fine-tune my presentation skills.

Blogging and using the wiki platform helps me to gain more exposure on the tech-savvy world today. Blogging can widen your horizon when readers give feedbacks and share their very own experiences with you. It allows me to reach a huge global audience where we are all inter-connected via the internet.

In a nutshell, I have benefited immensely from this seminar-styled learning experience on Professional Communication. Lessons have been fun-filled with a wide variety of activities arranged for us and we are given the opportunity to freely express ourselves during class. My biggest take away would be the way I should communicate with people all around me, which is the fundamental of building strong relationships.

Finally, I would like to thank Ms Lim for her constant guidance and patience in bringing us through this module. It was indeed a very enjoyable class I had, together with all my course mates. Thank you all! (:

Blogpost #5 : Reflection on Oral Presentation

Team Intern-a-holics proposed for an improvement in the NUS Life Sciences curriculum via Internships. This blogpost is an evaluation of myself as the first presenter on Introduction and Background.

In terms of preparation, I feel that I have done the necessary research to present to the audience some background information that is simple yet essential in helping them to understand our delivery. For example, an overview of the Life Sciences Industry is important to illustrate the importance of Life Sciences sector in Singapore’s economy and the pressing need to do something about our curriculum to groom future talents. However, given only 20 minutes of presentation time, I could not elaborate on importance of internships to the audience to help them see how exactly our proposal is going to work out and what the timeline looks like. This may end up leaving them confused about our proposal.

In terms of delivery, each point from each slide is progressively revealed to prevent audience from reading off the slide when I present. Hence, focusing their undivided attention on what I have to say. Further, I have tailored the presentation in such a way that it relates to and persuades our main target audience, NUSEU, to endorse our proposal. However, there are definitely areas for improvement because the link from increasing internships to propelling NUS towards one of the world’s leading universities may not be strong enough. This is evident from the Q&A session where a member of the audience requested for clarification again because she still cannot see the link between increasing internships and NUS being at the top. I have to increase my volume when presenting as it may be too soft for audience at the back to hear. Unfortunately, I would be too pre-occupied with content delivery to be self-aware.

Survey results are illustrated using a variety of methods like pie-charts and bar charts. I believe such visual aids enhanced the understanding of the feedbacks from NUS Life Sciences undergraduates. Percentages that I want to highlight are in large font sizes to emphasize its importance. Different colours are used to highlight the main word or phrase that is important as well. However, it would be better if I can add in a video to engage their attention more.

In all, I feel that there are many areas I can work on to improve my delivery. Tone variation and facial expression to display enthusiasm is very important to engage the audience. Hand gestures are too little because I tend to put them in front of me in a 'waitress-like' position, only occassionally gesturing when I realised that I was not doing so.