Final Reflection on ES2007S. My class rocks! =) (edited)

As I look back on my personal growth in this module, I feel that this module was fun, challenging, and extremely meaningful. This is because I’ve learnt what the principles underlying effective communication (e.g. the 7Cs) are. Acquiring such head knowledge alone is not sufficient in improving one’s communication skills however. Hence, I believe that the many opportunities provided for me to practice communication skills and the extensive feedback received from everyone, have helped me to improve my interpersonal communication ability.  This is basically the main thing that I value from this course. With respect to the 7Cs, I think that this course has impressed upon me the idea that concreteness and clarity is a critical component of effective communication. Obviously, the remanding 5Cs are also important, but I kind of understood that before I took ES2007S.

Another thing which I value is the oral presentation. Although it is part of the assignments given, and hence is technically covered in my previous paragraph, the presentation meant a lot to me, therefore I feel that it deserves special mention. I’m actually quite afraid of giving presentations, but I understand that they’ll play an indispensable role in my professional career. Hence, I do actually look forward to giving presentations (despite my fear) as I’m sure that through practice, my presentation skills will improve until I would one day, be able to stand confidently before a crowd with little or no nervousness.  I fully believe that ES2007S, through its lessons on giving presentations, has extremely benefited me as I’ve learnt how to be a better speaker through the use of effective non-verbal signals, eye contact and tone and volume control. Although I’m sure that I can still improve in these areas, I’m mentioning them in my blog post as I think I have made discernable improvements in these areas.

Along the same lines as Jac and Michelle however, I do feel a bit sad/worried about my lower than expected results for some of my assignments. Although I do realize that grades aren’t everything, well, I need them in order to qualify for graduate school admission (something which I currently don’t qualify for  ><).

My reflection on my Oral Presentation

In my opinion, I would rate my performance during my group’s oral presentation last Thursday (7/4/11), as a 7 upon 10. This scale is constructed with 5 being the quality of the typical oral presentation which I tend to give (based on my memories of presentations given during previous modules). A rating of 1 would be me giving an absolutely horrible presentation while 10 would be basically a perfect and mind-blowing presentation. Hence, I would say that I think I did above average for my oral presentation and am, in general, happy with my performance =). However, I do believe that there is still much room for improvement. An elaboration on this would be in the section titled “Weaknesses and Future Improvements”

Strengths

Since I’ve had the luxury of multiple rehearsals, I believed that I was well prepared for my presentation. This resulted in me feeling that one of the main strengths of my presentation was that my verbal messages were presented quite fluently. Also, I felt that my non-verbal messages, which I believed were communicated primarily via my hand gestures, effectively complemented my verbal messages and I am quite pleased with this. Lastly, I felt that I projected my voice effectively throughout my presentation and this is really the main cause of my satisfaction with my presentation. This is because I’ve received feedback on two occasions, one from Brad during my peer teaching lesson, and the other from my lecturer in a Freshman Seminar module which I took in year one, that the volume of my voice was not loud enough when I was speaking. I’m thus glad that I’ve managed to speak at an appropriate volume. I liked my slides as well, as I felt that its simple layout was easy on the eyes and yet, it still managed to be visually attractive. The credit for this achievement goes to Michael who designed my slides for me =). Having a computer engineer in my team rocks, as you can see haha.

Weaknesses and Future Improvements

Although I spoke fluently in general, the perfectionist in me was not happy that there were a few times when I stumbled over my words and when I had to pause longer than I should to recall my points. Thankfully though such moments were rare (I think). If it was not, please let me know so that I can improve in this area =). Thus, I felt it did not seriously compromise the effectiveness of my presentation. I am persuaded that the greatest weakness of my presentation was that my slides were not always linked to my spoken words in a coherent and clear manner. As such, the audience may have felt confused during certain parts of my presentation. This could have caused them to be unsure of whether their attention should be on my slides or on me in order for them to fully grasp the message that I was trying to put across. This is something which I think Brad has highlighted after my group’s presentation was done. As such, I would really like to improve in this area. One possible way to do so would be for me to scrutinize my slides extremely closely to check for the existence of a clear and logical link between my slides and my speech. Also, I could present in front of different groups of people before the actual presentation date, so that I can get feedback on the coherency and clarity of my slides with respect to my speech.

Comments and constructive criticism are most welcome! =) 

Intercultural Communication FAIL

When I was in primary school (about 11 or 12 years of age), my family hosted a bible study meeting involving several Singaporean families from my church. This meeting was held in my house. In that meeting, there was a family from Africa who joined us as they were visiting my church. After the bible study, the Singaporean kids started to play video games using the Playstation One which I owned. One of the young kids from that African family, who was around 10 years of age, wanted to join us in our gaming session. Hence, my friends and I decided to extend our hand of friendship to him.

In order to make him feel welcome, we decided to ask him questions about himself to get to know him better. However, we soon encountered a very big problem, He spoke with such a thick accent, that it was IMPOSSIBLE to understand him. Many times, after he said something, we resorted to repeating the word “Huh?” many times, thus making the poor guy repeat his sentences again and again. It was only after multiple repetitions that my friends and I could understand a little of what he said. Most of what he said still escaped our comprehension. I could see a clearly evident look of confusion on my friend’s face as we tried (and failed) to achieve effective interpersonal communication with that African kid. As for me, I felt quite frustrated at my inability to understand the kid’s English.  After playing with us for awhile, the African boy left us to join his parents. Maybe he too was frustrated at our inability to effectively communicate with one other, that he gave up trying to hang out with us?

I guess this situation is clearly a case of ineffective intercultural communication. Do any of you have any suggestions on how this situation could have been improved so that effective communication could have taken place instead? Thanks for your comments =)

2nd Draft of Application Letter

Hi guys! Here is the 2^nd draft of my application letter. Please copy and paste the url below to download it from dropbox.I am doing this because blogspot messes up the format of my letter ><.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/11431641/Application%20Letter%20for%20ES2007S%20%28for%20blog%29.docx

Please take a look at it and give me comments =). By the way, I realize that the word "Enclosure" in my letter spills into the second page. If any of you can find something in my letter which can be shortened so that my letter is exactly one page in length, I would be grateful for your help. Thanks =).

First Draft of Application Letter

Elliot Meyerowitz

Professor

Division of Biology 156-29
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, CA 91125, USA

Dear Professor Meyerowitz,

CALTECH SURF Research Internship

I am writing to apply for an internship in the research project entitled, “Regulation of a Stem Cell Niche by a Diffusible Paracrine Signal”. I am very interested to work for you in this exciting research project. I am a second year life science major in the National University of Singapore (NUS), whose expected date of graduation is May 2013. I will be graduating with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) degree in Life Sciences (with Specialisation in Molecular and Cell Biology).

At NUS, my life science modules have given me experience in laboratory work involving DNA transformation in bacteria. I am also trained in experimental procedures that are of relevance to molecular biology research. These are RNA analysis, performing reverse transcription and real time Polymerase Chain Reactions, constructing recombinant DNA molecules and performing DNA Sequencing.

Besides the above, I have been trained to utilize statistical programs (RExcel and SPSS) and tests (parametric and non-parametric tests) to analyse biological data. In addition, I am familiar with bioinformatics tools (PyMol, ClustalW, SWISSMODEL, etc) and techniques (homology modeling, protein/DNA sequence alignment and comparison, etc) that can assist me in performing computational biological analysis.

Outside the academic area, I have worked for two years as an administrative support assistant in the 2^nd People’s Defense Force Signals Unit (2PSU), Singapore Armed Forces (SAF). My work experience has taught me the importance of teamwork and effective communication skills. Hence, I believe that this experience will help me to carry out my responsibilities in the SURF internship effectively.

In addition, I have participated in a short research stint (6 weeks) at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN), Singapore. This internship has reinforced my lifelong ambition to undertake molecular biology research as a career choice. Thus, I sincerely hope that you would grant me this opportunity to work for you in this exciting area.

I have enclosed my resume and am looking forward to talking with you soon. Thank you for your consideration. 

Sincerely yours

Jonathan Ng

Enclosure

An Interpersonal Conflict Situation

I would like to describe an interpersonal conflict situation involving my mother and I when I was in secondary school. The background of this conflict is set during the four years of secondary school.  In school, some of my friends were in the habit of playing computer games in cybercafés every now and then. However, my mother was quite against me playing computer games with my friends in the cybercafé as she felt such gaming sessions were a bad influence on me. Her reasons were that she felt such activities might cause me to mix with bad company or lead me to suffer from computer game addiction. I on the other hand, felt that her demands were not entirely reasonable due to two reasons. Firstly, I was allowed to play computers games at home (so the argument that gaming in cybercafés would cause me to be a computer game addict does not seem like an airtight one). Secondly, in my opinion, my requests to go to cyber cafes with my friends were not excessive as I made them only once in a while, not every day.

The interpersonal conflict with my mother was basically a heated argument which I had with her over the above disagreement. Although it occurred in secondary school I cannot remember exactly when it happened. One day, when I came home, I mentioned to my mother that a couple of my friends were going out to enjoy a gaming session at a cybercafé. Next, I asked her for permission to go. From what I recalled, she replied in a rather agitated manner that she did not want me to go out with my friends. Considering that she had denied me several opportunities to go to the cybercafé with my friends in the past, I felt rather unjustly treated and I believed I lost my cool and started to engage in a heaetd debate with my mum. This unfortunately involved both of us shouting at each other.  The crux of our argument was basically me accusing my mother of being excessively controlling and illogical while my mother accused me of being disobedient. I believe I stormed off to end the argument.

Right now, as I look back, I believe that a possible solution (which is easy to say but hard to do) would be to do as Brad suggested in class. I need to be aware of the negative emotions running through my mind at moment just before the heated debate started and be able to modulate my emotions so that I can communicate my emotions and requests courteously (7CS of communication) to my mother.  Also I believe that showing empathy is important, as empathy is critical for successful interpersonal conflict resolution. Considering my mother loves me and desires what is best for me, I should have empathized with her viewpoint and let her know that I understand that gaming at a cybercafé has potential pitfalls and that I am able to manage such threats effectively in my personal life.

After reading this post, do you agree with my solution or do you think there are other things I should have done to avoid an argument and hopefully convince her to let me go out with my friends? In case you are wondering, this problem does not exist now as my mother gives me more freedom now than in the past (probably because I’m older). Hence she does not have problems with me gaming in cybercafés now.

Why effective communication skills are important for me

Hi =) welcome to my blog.

For me, effective communication skills are important as, based on what I've read, they are critical for building quality interpersonal relationships. Such relationships, in my opinion, form the core of the human existence. Based on a book by David W. Johnson, “Reaching Out: Interpersonal Effectiveness and Self-Actualization”, communication can be defined as, “exchanging messages to achieve understanding of each other’s perceptions, ideas and experience”. Such exchange however, has a strong potential for misunderstandings between people. This is because people can attach different meanings to the same words, or the same meaning to different words.  This phenomenon can thus lead to an incorrect interpretation of another’s words and hence lead to unnecessary anger and conflict. Personally, I do not think that my communication skills are very good, as I appear to have problems reading other people’s non verbal messages as well as understanding and assessing the emotions of others. Thus I would like to acquire effective communication skills through this module as I believe by improving my communication skills, I would be better able to express myself to others, understand what other people are saying to me, and in so doing, improve the quality of my interpersonal relationships.

Another reason why I think having good communication skills is important is that it would help me to help others better. Since we would encounter, sooner or later, friends in need of our advice or rebuke, I would like to learn how to be an effective communicator so that I can give concrete, courteous and constructive advice. In helping or advising people, I think it is important to empathize with people and see their situation from their point of view, before giving our own opinions on what they should do. I believe that learning effective communication skills would improve my ability to empathize with, and be courteous towards people, hence enabling me to be an effective counselor to my friends.

Lastly, I think effective communication skills are important to me in my career. I aim to be a scientist in the future, thus being able to communicate effectively in the workplace would be crucial to success in my career. This is because a scientist needs to be able to formulate hypothesizes in as concrete a way as possible, so that his colleagues would know exactly what he is trying to say. Furthermore, it is common for scientists to disagree with each other on which theory describes scientific phenomena most accurately. Therefore, acquiring good communication skills would allow me to argue for my case not only persuasively and accurately, but also courteously, so that I would not offend my colleagues who disagree with me .