Blog Post 4: Reflection on Learning

Finally, the semester is coming to an end. Taking ES2007S was one of the best decisions I have made this semester because it has provided me with essential communications skills which will benefit me in the workplace.

Having taken ES2331(Communicating Engineering) last semester, I became really interested in improving my communication skills. Feeling that I still have more to improve on, I decided to take up ES2007S to further improve my communication skills, which is one of the skills many engineers lack in. ES2007s gave me more than what I asked for as it provided me with knowledge in résumé writing, cover letter writing, personal statement writing amongst others.

Personally speaking, before I took this module, I had no résumé of my own, I had no cover letter of my own, I had no personal statement of my own, because I had no idea how to write/structure them. Taking this module, it taught me how to structure a good resume and cover letter and more importantly, how to use the 7 Cs to make your résumé and cover letter stand out from the crowd. I also learnt how to analyse job advertisements on the web so that I can prepare my résumé and cover letter better.

Other than the technical skills I learnt from this module, I also improved my interpersonal skills. Having to juggle 6 projects this semester, the interpersonal skills I have learnt from this module is put to good use as I learnt how to handle conflicts when they arise. More importantly, I learnt how to be self aware and motivated so that I can contribute more to the project groups that I am in.

To end of the final blog post of this semester, I would like to thank Mdm Fazilah for being providing so much guidance throughout the semester and also to my classmates for making class so enjoyable. I believe that the skills I have attained will serve me well in the future.

P.S I got an internship thanks to my résumé and cover letter. Taking this module is certainly worth it:D

Blog Post 3: Reflection on Team-based Research Project Proposal

The team-based research project proposal has finally come to an end after a terrific oral presentation by Team Algaenergy. This whole research project has been a really enriching experience providing me with a myriad of experiences.

I would like to thank all my groupmates, Michelle, Haikal, Baskar and Jieyang for being such cooperative groupmates throughout the whole project. All of us had different working style but we managed to make the most out of each others expertise to make the best out of the project. Jieyang organised meetings and provided many templates which helped in the team's administration. Haikal kept the team's spirit up and was a joy to work with. Baskar provided the team with so much technical information which helped us alot in the project. Michelle was the brain behind the oral presentation slides. Everyone played their part which led to the success of our final report and presentation.

I believe the key success factor for our project is that we all believed in making our project credible, because credibility is one of the most important key to persuasion. All of us researched on the topic so that we are able to back up our proposal with statistics and evidence. We also went one step further to interview professors and graduate students in the field so that we are able to get first hand information on the topic. Although all these took time and effort, it was worthy as I feel it really helped boost up the credibility of our proposal. This is one of the skills I will bring forward to my own projects and presentations in the future as well.

However not all is green as our team had our own low points as well where we almost changed topic because we felt that our topic was too large scale and we may not have enough expertise and credibility to persuade the audience. Instead of giving up, we decided to put in more effort into our proposal to make it more credible. Thinking back, it was a good decision to persevere on.

I believe that the skills attained from this whole research project experience is invaluable and will help all of us in the future at the workplace where collaboration is common. More importantly, I believe that the bonds of friendship forged during this project is even more invaluable and I hope we will stay in contact in the future.

TEAM ALGAENERGY:D

Blog Post 2 : Evaluating Intercultural Behaviour

Hi Everyone, I am back with my second blog post on the evaluation of intercultural behaviour. Being a person who really enjoyed my National Service Experience, I shall talk about my time during my Company Tactics Course(a course to train army captains) about 2 years back. The course was held at SAFTI Military Institute which is a military school that invites international officers over for training as well. During my course, I had the privilege of training with 2 International Army officers, 1 from France and 1 from India.

Here is a photo of us back in 2011

My Intercultural Communication Experience

As we all know, communication is of utmost importance in the Army especially during combat missions where miscommunication can bring about dire consequences. Non-verbal communication is even more important as soldiers try to maintain noise discipline in the jungles to prevent enemy detection. During one the tactical mission with Major Chau, a miscommunication occurred causing us to make a wrong decision for the mission.

During the mission planning phase, Captain Fabian asked Major Chau whether he needed more support for his capture of Objective .226. Major Chau wobbled his head. Taking that as a no, Captain Fabian did not allocate extra troops to Major Chau. When the actual mission started, Major Chau realised he had not enough soldiers and firepower to overrun the enemy on Objective .226 and in the end, the mission was a failure.

During the After Action Review(AAR), Captain Fabian realised that Major Chau meant YES instead of NO when he wobbled his head. To most people, a simple wobble of the head may mean a no, but to Indians, the way they wobble their head have different meanings. If Captain Fabian had understood this better, he would have clarified with Major Chau and the mission could have been a success.

A lesson to learn

Therefore, it is important to know the cultural behaviour of people of different cultures so that we will not misunderstand them. And therefore in my research of Indian head wobbles, it lead me to this article on BBC. 

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-26390944

This means YES

This means NO

This means maybe/maybe not

This article shows a video on the different Indian head wobbles and their interpretations. Although the video has been exaggerated for a comical effect, its accuracy still remains true according to the article.

I hope that my blogpost has been informative and entertaining. Do comment on any similar experiences you've had in the comments. See you all again next blog post

Regards,

Terence

Blog Post 1: Resolving Interpersonal Conflicts

This is my very first blogpost for ES2007s and I am really excited to share with everyone my thoughts and experiences with regards to interpersonal communication. For this blog post, I will be sharing with everyone my experience during my time in the Army.I feel that in the army, communication and interpersonal communication is paramount because it affects camaraderie which is one of the most important aspect for a company of soldiers.

Some background information

I was from the batch of 80/10 Golf Wing Platoon 3 when I attended the Officer Cadet School(OCS) during my National Service(NS) days. My 9 months there has definitely taught me a lot in terms of how to handle interpersonal relations and how to manage conflicts so that the platoon/company can remain cohesive and therefore able to work better when we fight on a mission. 

The interpersonal conflict situation

I will be talking about my experience during the Jungle Confidence Course in Brunei, where me and my team of 6(Wei Quan, Nian Deng, Sebastian, Shawn, Benny, Japheth, Albert and myself)  have to navigate in the treacherous jungles of Brunei for 9 days, with 1.5 days worth of rations(food and water). In these kind of high stress environment, the risk of interpersonal conflict is high, and indeed it happened almost every single day.

On one of the days, after trudging through miles and miles of unforgiving terrain, we decided to take a rest since it was getting dark. It was raining heavily and we needed to set up our shelter for the night as soon as possible. Everyone was tired but we continued setting up the shelter, except for Shawn. Overwhelmed by stress and exhaustion, Sebastian started scolding Shawn for being lazy and not helping out the team in building the shelter. In fact all of us felt the same way, and treated Shawn like he was not part of the team after the incident. Shawn made things worst when he was the first to enter the shelter and sleep while all of us were still in the rain preparing firewood and finding some food for the night. This made us dislike Shawn even more. The constant quarreling and pointing of fingers over the next few days took a toll on the team as our morale fell. Shawn became even more unmotivated and he became a liability to the team. This affected our movement speed, and ultimately almost caused us to fail the course.

The lessons

From this situation we can see that interpersonal conflict can arise due to environmental stress. However more importantly, the interpersonal conflict could have been avoided or minimized, if effective communication was practiced.

For example, Sebastian should have managed his emotions better, instead of scolding Shawn right away, he should clarify and ask Shawn why he is not helping. Maybe Shawn had a reason for doing so, maybe he was injured or was feeling unwell. If clarification was done by the team, we could have found the reason for Shawn's action and could have helped him if he had any problems. Therefore, in a conflict situation, one should not assume. Clarification would be better choice.

Scolding Shawn also did nothing but make him even more demoralized. Instead of putting him down, maybe we could have encouraged him and help him along the way. After all we are a team trying to pass a course together. If one man goes down, all of us go down too.Therefore, encouragement and empathy could have made Shawn feel better and more motivated to push on during the course which in turn makes the team stronger.

Shawn should also have been more appreciative of his teammates efforts. Instead of just looking on while the team was building the shelter, he could have cheered the team on. He should also have said thank you, or show other signs of appreciation to his teammates. This would have made the team feel better and may have prevented the conflict.

Conclusion

Therefore, from this situation we can see how self-awareness, empathy and appreciation can play an important role in resolving interpersonal conflicts. If you were me in this situation, what would you have done?