Post#5 (reflection on oral presentation and the module)

The end and the start

The end of the Journey?

The last week of a semester is usually occupied and this one is of no exception. With a few project presentations, including our ES2007S oral presentation, the past week was indeed busy. Now with every project finished, the module is coming to an end and it is worth time looking at my learning journey with Professional Communication.

Let me first evaluate on the oral presentation. For this presentation, our team is proposing a recommendation to the current JC curriculum to a panel comprised of MOE officers, JC teachers and student representatives. To make this presentation effective, our team needs to:(1) have a clear and logical organization for the presentation and (2) show persuasive verbal and non-verbal delivery. Therefore I would like to see whether I have met these criteria in my part of the presentation.

Organization

A clear organization has sufficient discussion on each point and hence it would let the audience follow the presentation easily. In this presentation, I was assigned to present the benefits of our proposal. Since there were JC teachers and student representatives in the panel, I split my part into 3 sections – benefits for students, JCs and Singapore. From the audience’s responses, I believed this structure was clear and my audience has grasped the main idea. Having said that, my discussion focused much on the qualitative benefits for my audience. It would be better if I could provide more quantitative data to lend my argument more credibility.

Delivery

Delivery is perhaps the most important part in this presentation. In particular, proper delivery pace, good level of fluency, appropriate posture and timely engagement with the audience are important for an effective delivery. My overall delivery pace was satisfactory, with some occasional breaks at some words. Besides that, I also noticed quite a number of fillers during my presentation, which affected the effectiveness of my presentation. Another interesting finding was when I turned from the projector’s screen, my head tend to tilt to one side. I was not even aware of that during the presentation. For engaging the audience, I tried to address their needs in my speech. Perhaps sustaining longer eye-contact would also help. This had been suggested by Ms. Goh during peer teaching, however I do find it challenging and it is worth more effort in future.

Overall the oral presentation was a good opportunity to synthesize all communication skills learned in this module. I must thank my teammates, Halim, Jia Ai and Eric, without your effort and contribution, we would not have completed this task.

Now looking back on the module, I believe it is fortunate having been exposed to various aspects of communication throughout the course. I really appreciate the sessions on inter-personal skills and inter-cultural communication. These sessions have raised my awareness of how to resolve inter-personal conflicts and inter-cultural conflicts under a team environment with people from different backgrounds. Reflecting on several projects I have done in NUS, I realize they could have been more enjoyable experiences if we had applied some techniques learned here.

Besides resolving conflicts, another important lesson I learned in this course is the importance of people’s perception in communication. This is perhaps the reason why Ms. Goh emphasizes non-verbal communication, anticipating the audience’s needs and engaging the audience, because ultimately our goal in communication is to get our message accepted by the other party. Therefore merely laying out information is not sufficient to achieve this goal. Through various activities in this module, I have started to pay more attention to eye contact, posture and gesture, tones, and paces, which can substantially influence people’s perception of my presentations. I am more confident now in these areas as compared to the time before I took the module.

To conclude, it has been a nice learning journey with ES2007S. I greatly enjoy the peer teaching, mock interview, blogging, and many other class activities. Of course, these activities would not be successful without contributions from every one. A big thank to every one and Ms. Goh for your timely feedback. They are very valuable sources for future improvement. As Jia Ai and Eric have said, it takes10,000 hours to master communication skills. Although the course has come to an end, it also marks a new start for us to explore more in professional communication. Equipped with skills gained in the course, I think we have a good head start for this long journey.

A new journey ahead

 

Blog Post#4 Foster Intercultural Communication

An Unexpected Greeting

During my internship, one manager from the US headquarters visited the Singapore office. At a meeting with our team, while the manager was briefing the team members about current technology advances, a Singaporean employee from another team suddenly entered the meeting room and then she started greeting the manager “Hi Bob, sorry I just got an urgent request asking me to fly to China tonight. I will not be able to attend the general meeting this afternoon … Yeah just to welcome you to Singapore.” Interestingly, the manager did not seem annoyed for being interrupted during the meeting. He happily responded “Hi Angeline, how are you?  It has been quite some time since my last visit to Singapore …” In less than one minute, Angeline finished and left the meeting room.  Most team members looked OK with this. However, one employee from China and I looked a little puzzled and shocked.

I was puzzled as in China a subordinate would probably not interrupt another team’s meeting for just greeting a manager. That subordinate would be deemed ignorant because he wasted other colleagues’ time, and he did not show respect to the manager’s authority entering the room without permission. Such view might be rooted in our culture where the individual should always consider the team’s collective benefit first and do not challenge people at higher positions or with higher authority.  In contrast, the case above demonstrated a more casual organizational culture and a more individual-centered environment. Perhaps the manager and Angeline were very good friends, or the meeting was not critical, hence neither the manager nor other team members felt uncomfortable.

 

Post#3 Job Application Letter — Linux Engineer

The job Advertisement (the recruiting company sent it in doc format directly to the department):

LINUX ENGINEER

Location:  Singapore
Job Responsibilities:

• Ability to operate in complex, highly-secure, and highly-available, operations environments and interact with the technology domain experts required to maintain those environments.
• Design and document solutions to complex integration problems
• Participate in the monitoring and analysis of systems performance and the resolution of systems problems
• Document systems installation work instructions
• Provide support in the installation and testing of systems products
• Support IT projects in a technical infrastructure specialist role

Key Requirements:

• Experience in working with Linux OS
• System Integration experience with Linux OS, Web Servers with PHP, SQL Servers & Perl interpreter engine.
• Familiar with Linux AUFS.
• Experienced in building Linux USB or CD distribution.
• Experienced in Local Area Network configuration.
• Exposure in low level design and high level architecture will be an added advantage
• Fresh Graduates with Mechanical/Computer and Electronics Engineering degree will be considered

———————————————————————————————————————————————–

Nandita Nanadakumar
Robert Walters
6 Battery Road 11-07
Singapore, 049909

Dear Nandita,

LINUX ENGINEER, Job Reference No. XXXX.

I am very interested in the above advertisement you sent to our department.  I will be graduated with the degree in Electrical Engineering specialized in computer network this May. I would like to take this exciting opportunity to apply my Linux knowledge acquired through my education and various internship projects to support a more robust IT infrastructure in your company.

My interest in the Linux system led me to take up relevant Linux courses and communication network courses during my university study, from which I established a solid foundation in the Linux field.

In addition to that, my internship at Eastman Kodak Company let me deploy my knowledge to complete their new Linux printer driver, which equipped me to cope with heavy Linux programming and Linux CD distribution building. I also successfully crafted low level circuit design during my part-time duty with Portege. There were ample opportunities in my internships where I exercised my data analysis skills via identifying and fixing firmware bugs. I learned to be meticulous with data through these internship projects.

Besides essential technical knowledge, I devoted my time to build my personal skills too.  I took up part-time teaching assistant job in my department, where I enhanced students’ understanding of complex electronic systems by clarifying their doubts and giving instructions. I also served my school’s community service club, in which I supported Bishan Home’s annual celebration by training their residents. The project enhanced my ability of being an active team player.

My experience and studies has prepared me with the essential assets for a Linux engineer. I am willing to work in a complex and highly-secure environment as in Robert Walters. Enclosed is my resume which highlights my experience. May I have the privilege of having further discussion on the position in a future interview? Thank you.

Best regards,
Liu Chaoyi

HP: 82343485 || Email: liuchy35@gmail.com

 

Post#2: Resolving interpersonal conflict

The silent team

Alex and Bob joined BlueHat Company as part-time employees, who could work from home. Alex was a fresh graduate, while Bob had some years of experience in the industry. Recently, their supervisor assigned them to build a prototype for a new product. Alex was happy to find Bob friendly and knowledgeable. They quickly settled work for each person.

However, as the project went on, Alex found it difficult to contact Bob. Sometimes Bob did not reply Alex’s emails on hardware design issues. He was also late for several regular meetings with Alex. During the meetings, Bob continued to contribute creative ideas towards the product, yet he did not show any draft of hardware design to Alex, only to claim that the design was fine. Alex became frustrated as he was lost on the project progress.

Alex tried to ask if it was for any his fault that made Bob unhappy, but Bob told him everything went well. Alex feared it would result in a bad relationship with Bob if he raised concerns directly. Furthermore, Alex did not want to challenge Bob’s seniority, so Alex kept silent. When their supervisor asked Alex about the project progress, Alex replied nothing went wrong. Gradually, communication between Alex and Bob became minimal.

Finally, during a recent project meeting, Bob produced his hardware design to their supervisor without notifying Alex. Alex felt annoyed, yet he was reluctant to talk to the supervisor as he had already reported everything was good. Alex now does not know what to do.

What could Alex have done better in the project and what could he do next?

 

Why effective communication skills are important for you

“Do engineering students need excellent communication skills?” Well, staring at this question I am a bit lost. One might be wondering “shouldn’t the answer be obvious”? Yet coming from an education background where rote learning is much stressed, I do struggle for some time to find out the answer for myself. Nevertheless, it is interesting to probe some aspects of communications skills and their impacts on my study.

While solving real-world problems is essential for engineering students, it is equivalently important to convey their solutions accurately to others. It would hence rely heavily on communication skills, be it listening techniques, good report writing, presentation skills or negotiation skills. There are times when my friends and I fail to convince the panel that our solution is feasible in our presentation. I believe we overlook some subtle yet crucial aspects in communication. For example, our body language are not suitable; we do not follow the panel’s question closely, hence misunderstand it; we overlook the panel’s profile and fail to properly rephrase ideas to fit the audience, and etc. It is discouraging that we have good ideas but cannot get the message across.

Besides that, engineering work (projects) today inevitably involves much teamwork, so interpersonal skills and ability to resolve conflicts come into the picture. It is not uncommon that a team consists of a diverse background and there might be clashes in personal interests, personality and etc. If these clashes are not managed well through proper communication channels, the project could end up to be painful. I did experience projects in which team members did not engage in resolving conflicts, leading to misunderstanding and of course the project in the end was not successful.

Professions such as engineering, do require technical expertise, but it is as important to acquire communication skills as to work out engineering solutions. This would greatly facilitate our work/study and ultimately help achieve out goals.

 

ES2007S