Final Reflection

In various social settings, people use communication to share their ideas, express their thoughts and convey their life stories . In this way, it helps to build up the interpersonal relationships between two people. I believe that if there is no communication, there can be no relationship. But if there is effective communication, healthy relationships can be established (as mentioned in my first blog post assignment).

At the start of this course, I acknowledged that effective communication is imperative in building up good relationships with people. However, it was during this course when I got to learn more about the process of human communication. It helps me in recognizing the complexity of human communication and the many relationships that it involves. As such, I become highly aware of my nonverbal cues and listening habits during communication. In the past, I did not pay much attention to these. Besides, I used to be less courageous to state my opinion clearly and forcefully and decline under peer pressure. I have now learnt to be in control of my actions while knowing my rights and assert to create a win-win situation with people, especially at work.

With good communication within my group, I am really glad that I have built up good relationship with my two other group mates - Wen Jie and Chiew Yen. I have honed my report writing and research skills through the research project. In addition, I have also learnt how to apply the principles of good business writing in various contexts, not forgetting about the 7Cs of effective communication as well. Once, during my temporary job at a Human Resource Department, the HR manager requested me to sign a document on her behalf. I did not know what she meant by that until the director secretary explained to me the use of a proxy signature. In my opinion, these should have been taught to us earlier for good understanding of the written business communication!

Another valuable skills that I have developed in this module is the job search skills. Through drafting of cover letters and resume and the conference with my tutor Miss Kim, I now have a better idea of how to prepare an attractive and persuasive resume and job application letter. The trial interview with Xueli and Wilson was interesting. The lessons in class also made me more aware of how I can prepare for interviews in the future.

All in all, I find the module an enjoyable and enriching one. With the skills that I have developed in this course, I hope I can communicate effectively in the workplace in the near future. Thank you to Miss Kim and my classmates for all your guidance. I would definitely recommend my friends to take this module.

Cheers!

My biodata

I am currently a third year undergraduate pursuing my Chemistry degree at the National University of Singapore. I was a student of Jurong Secondary School and completed my 'A' Levels course at Jurong Junior College. Being committed and enthusiastic, I was appointed to take up the leadership role as the chairperson of school choir and served as a choir sectional Leader in the college choir. As an active member, I represented my school and college in Singapore Youth Festival Central Judging in 2001, 2003 and 2005, as well as in National Day Parade performance in 2002. In recognition of my commitment and contribution to the school choir, I was awarded the certification of merit in 2003.

Reflecting on the Research Project Experience

I am pleased that the research project is near to completion. For the past four weeks, my group had to work on the report almost everyday due to the packed schedule given by our module coordinator. Nonetheless, I had a good learning experience doing the project with my group members, Chiew Yen and Wen Jie.

I learnt that, it is important to build good working relation and the key to that is to have effective communication among the members as it would allow the members to have a mutual exchange of ideas and prevent conflicts among them. At the initial stage, probably the group members were rather reserved, hence the first meeting was not a spontaneous one. Fortunately, we managed to communicate better in the subsequent meetings after getting to know each other better through the communication with each other online. For convenience purpose, we often fork out some time to 'meet' online and hold our discussion on msn messenger which i feel is important in following up with the progress of our project report. Besides holding meeting on msn, we also meet up for face-to-face discussion to edit the report and discuss the problems we faced together, which helps in clear communication.

With coorporative and responsible members in my group, it definitely makes the project experience a pleasant one. We always try to assign the work equally and finish up on time. This is crucial so that we are able to meet our deadlines and hand in our work on time. I hope that we can do the same and be well prepared for our upcoming oral presentation.

As a whole, communication among group members is clear and I am glad that we have built up our friendships in this way.

Evaluating Intercultural Behavior

Five years ago, when my elder cousin and I were walking along the street at Chinatown, a Westerner tourist approached my pretty cousin to take a photo with him as he wanted to take a photograph with the locals. Initially my cousin revealed her unwillingness to take the photo to me as she did not wish to take it with strangers. However, after convinced by me that it would be fast, my cousin went on to take a photograph with the Westerner. When taking the photograph, the Westerner put both of his hands on my cousin’s waist and I saw that my cousin’s face turned white at once. To make the situation worse, he gave my cousin a hug to thank her for the photo before leaving. That was when my cousin finally yelled at him, “Hey! Don’t touch me!” The Westerner tourist was very much caught by surprise due to the huge reaction by my cousin. My cousin and I eventually walked away without hearing him out.

Given that the Westerner tourist had no hidden agenda, clearly, the situation here is due to the difference in cross cultural non-verbal communication style. Westerners are brought up to be more open-minded and straight-forward and the Asians are generally more conservative and less direct. This forms a kind of cross cultural communication difference between Westerners and Asians and thus, in turn, creates the difficulties in understanding each other which leads to the existence of misunderstandings between each other like the given scenario. Firstly, the direct approach by the Westerner was thought to be bold by my cousin who is conservative. Asians generally do not have body interaction with people whom they do not know, except for handshake, thus the Westerner had scared my cousin off with the intimate action, as seen by my cousin.

However, to solve the problem of difference in culture, understanding of each others’ cultures is important. With globalization, information of the cultural background of the countries is accessible on the Internet, books, etc. Should the Westerner have known more about the culture of Asians, he would not have scared off my cousin, leaving her with the thought of him trying to take advantage of her!

Potential Research Project Topic

As a Chemistry student who will not go through Industrial Attachment (IA) during the course of study in NUS, I hoped to work as an intern in areas which are related to my field of studies during my last vacation so that I could gain some hands-on practical experience before graduation. It was tough to find a science-related temporary job through job agencies or from newspapers, hence I went to the NUS eJob Service website to search for related internships available for application. However, I realised that there were very few job postings looking for science undergraduates and most were seeking for engineering, IT and business students.

From what I observed, Engineering students have to undergo IA during their course of study in NUS as it is a requirement for graduation. This is beneficial to the Engineering students in their job search upon graduation as they would be equipped with prior working experience related to their field of studies. Although Business students do not go through IA, there is the NUS Biz Career Service, from the School of Business which provides a dedicated suite of professional career-related services to the Business undergraduates and MBA students. What about the Science students?


(Screen shot of full-time job listing provided by NUS eJob Services)

As mentioned, job listings in the science field provided by the NUS eJob Service are relatively few, compared to other fields. Thus, in contrast, Science students who wish to take up a full-time job or internship in the science field have to be more independent in their job search. They are also more likely to face difficulties since, unlike the Engineering students, most of the Science students in NUS do not have any hands-on experience from Industrial Attachment and Internship (with the exceptional of students from certain disciplines such as Applied Chemistry).

In view of this, the general research question on this issue would be: Do the Science students from NUS feel that there is sufficient internship or job opportunities offered by the school? A survey would be carried out to find out how many of the Science students wish to work in profession in science field, whether they feel the services offered by the NUS Career Services Centre and the various departments from Science Faulty fulfil their needs in job search and applications. Lastly, the survey would investigate whether they are in favour of the establishment of a similar career centre as NUS Biz Career Service, which caters specially to NUS Science students to provide them help and support in their internship or job search and to provide the kind of services they wish to attain from this career centre. To meet the objective of the research study of establishing a career centre within Science Faculty, the research report would be submitted to the NUS Faculty of Science, Vice Dean of Graduate programme as a student's feedback for consideration of establishing a Science Career Centre.

Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

I would like to share with you an interpersonal conflict that I experienced during my first year in junior college when I did my project work (PW) as part of the A level program. As the project group was assigned to us by our tutor, we did not get to choose our group members. Initially, things were fine and my group mates could get along together quite well, until one of my group mates (let's call him B), started to skip our project meetings for no reason. As a group leader, I went up to him and encouraged him to come for our project meetings, but to no avail. After a discussion with the rest of our group mates, we decided to approach our tutor to seek help as he refused to listen to us.

B began to turn up for the subsequent meetings after being advised by the tutor but somehow, due to some misunderstanding, he sort of blamed us for "complaining" to the tutor about him and appeared to be against me, especially. During the meetings, he did not contribute much in our group work and would even distract us by joking and talking about personal stuff with another group mate. Whenever we had to rush to complete certain stages of the project, that kind of attitude of his really got us fed up and we were left with no choice but to approach the tutor for help again.

However, things did not turn out to be what I expected. After seeking for help a second time from our tutor, I found myself being bombarded with vulgarities by B on MSN! He probably hated me for going up to the tutor again. In a fit of anger, I replied, "You did not listen to us and contribute much in our project. I find it even harder to work with you now. With your attitude like this, perhaps, you shouldn't be in JC."

I cried throughout the night as I was very hurt by the words he used on me. Was that what I truly deserved? After that incident, I stopped talking to him and till now, I regret to say that the conflict is still unresolved. Perhaps, I did not handle the situation well at that point of time. If you were in my shoes, how would you react and manage the conflict?

Effective Communication Skills

Currently, one of the modules that I am taking in NUS is “Professional Communication - Principles & Practice”. The main aim of this module is to teach the students how to become an effective communicator in various social settings, especially in the workplace.

I recalled that my classmates and I were ‘forced’ by our teacher to attend compulsory workshops on effective communication when we were in secondary school as we were told that it would be helpful to us. Indeed, in the inter-connected world that we are living today, where we get to interact with (different) people everyday, being able to communicate effectively is very important to build up healthy relationships so that messages are put across tactfully and correctly to the intended receiver. As communication builds bridges between people, being able to communicate effectively will prevent communication breakdown and enable me to build up good relationships with my families, friends, lecturers, lab technicians and course mates, as well as obtain accurate information from them by practicing active listening. Besides, having equipped with effective communication skills, I will gain an edge over other candidates during job interviews. In one way or another, it will also help greatly in my job performance at the workplace, where office politics often exist. In short, effective communication skills plays a vital role in life, be it family, social or working life.

I have always been thinking of attending the workshops organized by the NUS Career Centre so that I can prepare myself for the working world upon graduation next year. Now, I am glad that I have the chance to take this interesting module for a better understanding of effective communication in the workplace. After all, I have spent a hefty amount of over 1200 bidding points to bid for this module!