The Colourful Module

Time really flies and it has come to an end of the semester. I could still remember vividly before the start of the semester, I asked my friends Shawn and Xiu Qin to take this Profession Communication module with me. For me, it is not only the end of this module, it is also the end of my education journey. After 2 more weeks, there will be no more tests, exams, lectures for me. Thus, I wanted to end this semester learning some soft skills which will be applicable in the workplace and in all social setting.


Before taking this module, I aim to learn how to write application letter, cover letter, interview skills. My mentality was "Since I still have s/u and I have to pay for similar course if I taken it outside class, why not just take it in school."  It was after taking this module that I realized how much work we need to do! Beside those that I mentioned, there was peer teaching, proposal writing, taking of minutes, writing of agenda, oral presentation and a lot more! Nevertheless, what actually is happens is, the more you do the more you gain.


There are many challenges I faced and skills gained during the course of this module. Firstly, As a computer "noob", I don't even know how to set up a blog, not to say a wiki page. In addition, it was an advantage to me whereby I had a group member, Mark who is from computer engineering. I learnt how to change the background of the powerpoint slides design from him. After this module, I learn how to set up a blog, wiki page as well as create good powerpoint slides. These skills might be simple to many of you but not to me!


Secondly, I learnt many skills when doing the proposal, namely team building, surveying, interviewing, organizing of ideas, promotional writing, presenting skills. While doing a proposal is hassle, whereby you need to create surveys, carry out interviews, come out with minutes of meeting and agenda, it actually enables me to learn how to write a real life proposal. Before taking this module, I still remember in one of my holiday job meeting session I had to sit in to take minutes of meeting. I had no idea what to take note of during the meeting, the tone, the language used in recording and how to compile the information thereafter. All I had was a sample minutes from my manager. After this, I believe I can sit down and write a more professional minutes. Writing skills is not something that I can learn overnight. However, I have a team mate Shawn who possess good language ability and is able to write persuasively. What I can learn from him is the style of writing. More reading has to be done in order to improve my word bank, writing as well as communication skills.


Thirdly, I gained very useful skills of writing a proper resume, cover letter as well as interview skill. These are the skills which I want to learn before I graduate. I do ponder in some time of the semester, there are so many workshops that NUS offer to teach these skills in specific. Hence in some point of the module, I had the dilemma of why should I still continue taking this module? I am glad that I didn't dropped this module in the end and been the managed to pass the last stage and most heavy part of the module, the proposal. Just like one of my classmates Ao Yun mentioned, even though from this module we might not be able to grasp all the skills yet but from this point in time, we would take note of the skills and practice them in future, to further improve some of the skills taught.


Lastly I would like to mention a valuable relationship that I have gained... that is FRIENDSHIP. Like many of my classmates mention in the sharing session, it really feels as if we are back to our secondary or junior college days whereby we have a more chances of interaction unlike other modules where we only have lectures. Outside class, we complain about school work on facebook! Its the first module in my entire university days which I have soooo many class photos from a module. I would like to thank all of you for making this module so enjoyable and the memories forged.

(The first lesson, I had a comment on my back " BLUR" from Nicholas. Akash who always sound very intimidating was actually quite lenient in my interview session. Mark is a very nice team mate and friend. Hui Ting who is always very cheery. Xiu Qin is a very studious girl. Elaine is a very smart girl, always smiling :). AoYun is still a very innocent girl who believes Shawn that we are siblings. ChenYan ,sweet looking, a little blur at times. Doris laughed at me when her presentation ended hahaha. Desmond a very serious man. Terence the Terter agreed that I looked 16. Chen Chen my peer teaching group mate. Ella a very cute girl. Fahmi the life sciences students who don't look he is in the fourth year. Wee Lee saved my life by lending me his lab coat. Kelvin is a very confident person. Shawn who is able to translate my idea into words and Akash mentioned "Having brilliant ideas means little, getting the world to believe in them is the real peak that needs to be scaled.". Last but not least, Miss Lim a hardworking tutor who is always guiding us, following up on our work even on Sundays. YOU ALL MADE THE LESSON COLOURFUL)

Its finally over!

Yes! Oral presentation is finally over!!! I must say that I really have great team mates, Shawn and Mark who make this project an enjoyable one. Each of us has a different forte and contribute to the group in our strongest area. Shawn has the language ability, Mark has strong computer knowledge while I contribute my ideas.

Chinese have this saying " one minute on stage, ten years off-stage". It was indeed a long preparation for this 20minutes of oral presentation. Before the presentation, we had to prepare our script, practice our script, come out with presentation slides, meetings and so on... We had to practice our oral presentation together to ensure we do not exceed our time limit and smooth transition from one presenter to the next. In addition, we also fine tuned our slides and spot mistakes on each other's slides during the meeting. During the last preparation session, we even had to burn our whole Sunday away! We are each other's audience and asked each other questions regarding our presentation. True enough, those questions are also the questions our classmates asked. We also recorded our own presentation during our mock presentation and looked at our verbal and non verbal cues. It is an excellent method review our own presentation and correct any mistakes. Some mistakes I made during our mock presentation includes looking at my script most of the time, having little eye contact with "audience" and placing slides in the wrong order.

During the "big" day, I tried to correct previous mistakes by knowing my slides and script inside out. I had cue cards only for certain points which I cannot remember so that I ensure eye contact with the audience on the presentation day. Some improvements that I made include being loud, increase in eye contact, appropriate gesture (the part on "sedikit, sedikit, lama lama jadi BUKIT", the whole class laughed. I believe it is due to my gesture which captured their attention). Nevertheless, I noticed quite a number of mistakes I made during the presentation. I remain rooted in one position, slouched, blanked out the slides accidentally (even though I tried to control the wireless presenter). During the Q&A session, I failed to rephrase Aoyun's question, used a taboo phrase "As I mentioned earlier......" and eye contact in the direction of the person who asked question.

I must also say that I am very proud of our slides. The background used was fitted to our theme of recycling. On every slide, 6x7 rule was strictly adhered to. The animation used was also appropriate. I like my slide on "sedikit, sedikit, lama lama jadi BUKIT" and the slide on "proposed scheme for IUT" the most :)

I was more prepared for this presentation compared to our peer teaching. It might be because we have done up with the proposal, hence had better grasp on our content. Since this project was a topic we have chosen, I had greater interest in the topic presented compared to peer teaching topic. The use of slides was also more efficient as it was less wordy and with appropriate pictures to capture attention and better elaborate on certain points. From the preparation to the delivery of my presentation, overall I think there is an improvement compared to peer teaching session.

I LOVE TEAM GREEN!!