Final Reflection on Learning (Post #6)

It has been 4 months since we started our journey on becoming great professional communicators. And here we are at the end of the semester writing our last blog posts. It feels like it was only last week we were in our first class in a seminar room at the Faculty of Science. Time does fly quickly.

This post is about reflection on the things that we have learned throughout this course. The skills I have picked up are given below:

• Public speaking: The oral presentation, peer teaching and even the elevator pitch all focused on improving our presentation skills. And I think it is safe to say that each one of us did really improve ourselves over the time of this course. I am now more comfortable presenting infront of a crowd. I still have room for a lot of improvement but I guess this module helped me to take the first step towads becoming a better speaker.

• Writing: Blogging helped me improve my writing skills. Writing the blog posts was a lot of fun too.  While reading others' posts was another great way to get new perspectives on the same subjects. Everyone knows you can't be a better writer if you don't read and by reading I did gain some insightful experiences which I would have never gained otherwise. It was interesting to see how each one of us can write a completely different post about the same topic. 

• Job search: The feedback from my peers and Brad has helped me to improve my cover letter. The peer teaching session on writing cover letters was very helpful too. My resume has received a complete makeover after that. I am now more confident than ever before about going to an interview, thanks to the mock interviews.

Throughout this module one thing which was prevalent is peer review. Each and every class we reviewed each other, from our presentations to proposals. I liked how we always got a chance to improve our material after we receive feedback from others. This has definitely made a big difference. For example, my cover letter was totally rewritten after receiving peer feedback. And God only knows what our peer presentation would have been like without the mock presentation feedbacks. So, I think this is something which was very helpful to all of us.

It has been the most memorable module of my NUS life till now and by the looks of it, I can safely assume it will hold that place. When all the other modules in Engineering are so boring and uninteractive this module was like a breath of fresh air. I think two key things made my experience with this module so unique and satisfying. One was defnitely Brad - his unique take on teaching and emphasis on interactivity has worked like a charm. Secondly, all my classmates for this module have been wonderful. Everyone has been very friendly and helpful. Also, as there was so much diversity in class, it really helped us to become more culturally aware. 

Since the first day I had stepped inside this class, I have changed a lot for the better. This module will definitely be remembered for three things: for all the things it has taught me, for all my peers and for Brad. 

Thanks everyone for all your helpful comments and feedbacks on my blog. It was a  pleasure working with all of you. Best of luck with your exams!

Reflection on Oral Presentation (Post #5)

Finally, the oral presentation is over! This was a long week…

As our group was the last one to present, the pressure was on us to deliver. The first two teams, Liberty and Solution Diggers, were very, very impressive. Everyone was so professional and so well prepared that we had to work hard to match their level of performance. We met numerous times within this week to prepare the slides and also to practice.We changed our presentation according to the feedback received from our peer review team and Brad. We also reviewed each other within our team to make the presentation and delivery better.

I have to say, I have never prepared so much for a presentation in my life! And I believe it paid off to some extent, for me personally, as I am not a natural public speaker. Despite of that, I guess I did an OK job. I was glad that I didn’t have to look at the slides and didn’t stammer during the presentation. However, my biggest blunder was to insist on using the keyboard for controlling the slides. As many of my peers have pointed out, standing behind the computer was a mistake as it prevents the audience from seeing the presenter. I should have placed myself where the rest of my team mates stood for presenting their parts.

Now, I have to thank my teammates for doing such a wonderful job. I knew what Gwen was going to talk about, still I found myself listening intently what she was saying because she was just so enthusiastic and fluent in her delivery. Johanna differentiated our presentation from the rest and made it a whole lot more interactive by using the whiteboard. Last but not the least, Jae was naturally so charismatic and energetic that she managed to engage the audience and end the presentation with an impact.

I think our slides were also one of our positive aspects. We were inspired by the slides we see at all the TED talk presentations. We wanted to focus on one thing at a time on each slide. However, after seeing the first two teams’ slides, we wondered if our slides were a bit too minimal because both the Solution Diggers and Liberty’s slides had a professional template and followed a conventional style. In contrast ours looked very basic. In the end though, we decided that we liked the minimalistic look more and chose to go with it. Looking back, it seems we made the right call because it seems our peers liked our presentation slides after all.

At last I would like to add the fact that this oral presentation helped me to learn how to speak in front of an audience. I was the one beginning the presentation, all the more reason for me to be nervous. Practicing really helped me in being a little less nervous because I knew what I was going to talk about. As Amy Cuddy said, “Fake it till you become it” right? Here’s hoping nobody noticed my nervousness, ha ha!