Classes have ended?!?!?!

Time flies and it is the final week of the teaching semester before exams loom around the corner!

As I reflect on what made me choose “ES2007S: Professional Communication” in the first place, it makes me laugh because the reason is pretty lame. 4 Science Club seniors recommend me to take this module in my first year at NUS because it is FUN, ‘TEXTBOOK-less’, and VERY USEFUL! (Brad, do you remember Jane Chan, Moses Khoo and WeeSiong? They were in your class last year =P) My seniors also said “You must choose the class with Brad Blackstone as the tutor ok? He’s the most engaging one!” I heeded their advice and THANK GOD I took this module! :D

Yes, I was mentally prepared that the workload was going to be heavy, just as what my seniors had described to me! But I must admit, this is one of the best modules to take in NUS, besides Malay language. :D (Serious! No Boot-licking) I absolutely LOVE the way we interact in class. Classes are never boring! I always look forward to lessons despite my hectic 8-hour break-less classes on Tuesday and Friday. Even though work is never-ending (and I really mean NEVER-ENDING), I declare that I learn the most out of all module in NUS. (Just like what I mentioned in my first post that I hope to reap more than what I sow.)

Which module in NUS will teach life-long skills such as writing application letter, resume, proposals, oral presentation skills, job interviews and qualities like having high EQ? So tell me, what more can I complain about? The work load is simply worth my pain. (Oh wait... the work load is even further cut down, as compared to previous semesters!)

There are just so many good things that I love about ES2007S, which I probably will not blabber here again as my classmates would have mentioned quite a lot on their blogs. Nevertheless, I have only 2 suggestions. Firstly, for the formation of teams to work on proposals, it will be good if having a team leader in each group is not compulsory! I think that this results in a lot of dependence on the team leaders. Perhaps what a team needs is a team FACILITATOR, whose job is only to arrange meeting times and place. Other than that, all of the team members are made equally responsible in ensuring the smooth progress of their group work. In this way, team members will not have the tendency to wait for the team leader’s cue most of the time. Secondly, I think the number of websites in the skill builders could be shortened to about 3 key websites? :D The number of websites to view per week is quite a lot and for most of the time, I cannot quite remember what I have read before my next class!

Other than that, I have no other complaints!

Since this is my last post for this module, I would like to express my gratitude to ALL of my group 9 classmates (I think we rock the class!) and Brad, for being the best ‘ang-moh’ tutor I’ve seen in NUS (HAHA!) and for being a superb facilitator for my endless learning of communication skills! I am feeling pretty sad now as honestly, I will miss this class a lot! I think I have all bonded very well with everyone in this class, especially with a couple of girls, in a short span of 13 weeks. =) I wish you guys all the best in your future endeavours and Brad, may you have many income bonuses every year! :P

GAMBATTE!

Oral presentation done! WOOHOO!

I must admit that in today’s oral presentation (OP), I was extremely nervous! There were butterflies in my stomach while my team members were presenting! I really did not want to screw up in today’s presentation as I did not want to affect my team’s scores and of course, this OP contributes to 20% of my final grade. >.<

I rehearsed a number of times before today’s OP and I must admit that I was very worried as my portion required me to cover quite a heavy content and I took about 8 minutes during my rehearsals. I was worried that I might show bad time management today. Luckily, I managed to finish my speech in about 7 minutes today!

I think some of the good points in my presentation today are that I had good voice projection and my tone was not monotonous as I took the effort to emphasize certain key points in my presentation by slowing down and speaking even louder in certain sentences! I hope that the audience felt the same way too! Also, I thought that I tried my best to speak confidently and passionately about my content while maintaining eye contact with the audience and trying not to look at the screen. (I guess it was useful for me to read garrreynold's delivery tips the day before OP) But I do admit that I was very afraid of looking at a person into his/her eyes though and so, I tend to glance at each group and Brad. Nevertheless, I really tried to hide my nervousness and appear relaxed and natural as much as possible. Also, I was more conscious about my non verbal body movements today. (I tend to move a lot when I’m nervous) I am also very glad that my team showed good time management as we managed to stick to presenting within 20 minutes. Also, all of us tried to stand nearer to the class so that we can be seen more clearly.

However, I felt that I sort of failed to invoke a sense of humour in the audience when I mentioned that networking is a good way to meet one’s potential spouse. HAHA! Oh well, I still continued on as usual. Also, one major part that I can improve on is to do away without my help notes in my hands! I understand that one has to internalize (not memorize) the content of one’s presentation but I was EXTREMELY afraid that I would forget the key messages which I wanted to convey to my audience. Hence I still chose to have the paper in my hands while presenting for emergency purpose. :D Nevertheless, I tried my best to internalize my content before the presentation and NOT to refer to the cards in my hands as much as possible today! I love Ivan and XiangMin for being able to speak without reference to any notes. (I need more practice in this part!)

Also, I was quite taken aback by the questions asked by my fellow classmates. I tried to answer the questions to the best of my ability but I do admit that I depend on Ivan quite a bit to help me with some of the difficult questions raised. Nevertheless, I hoped that I still appeared to be confident during the QnA session though. (XiangMin, I am very sorry that you did not have a chance to answer the questions as most questions targeted the recommendation portion which Ivan and I were more familiar with) I understand that the audience may have doubts in our recommendation as I mentioned the recommendation portion rather briefly due to the lack of time. But I hope that Brad and my classmates are interested in our team’s proposal though! :P (I have a question: Did I move my hands a lot while speaking? I think I did but I am not very sure about it)

To my team: THANK YOU for all your hard work! (Xiang Min for coming out with the powerpoint template and Ivan for inserting the pictures and finding the video) I thought that Team S.I.X did better than I expected! :D (At least the video injected some smiles in the audience!)

P.S I bothered to dress up today for the first time in ES class HAHA!