#6 Final Reflection

Three months ago, when I was looking for modules to bid for, the first and foremost thought on my mind was how would I be able to find a job. So naturally I was looking for a module which would help prepare me for graduation soon, something which is severely lacking in nus.

Professional Communications, I'm happy to report, does this and so much more. Firstly, I'm sure that everyone will agree with me that the module really boosted our presentation skills, even for those that did relatively worse for their last presentation, yours truly included. But let me reflect on why this is so. Everyone had to present a total of three times, and this really proved the old adage "Practice makes perfect". The small class size also made it easier to present and boosted confidence, because everyone knew each other towards the end. Because I have already reflected on oral presentation in my previous blog post, I shall not go too much in depth into it here J

To be honest I have never done any proper business proposal writing nor pitching and selling it afterwards. Then again, maybe the authorities who set the core modules curriculum didn’t deem it essential for engineers to learn how to write a proper proposal. Leave that to the business people, they must have thought. But in the first month of my internship, my supervisor was horrified to learn that I was severely unequipped with such skills (which she thought students should already know). See, there’s this gap in today’s society: there are certain skills that employers expect school to teach their students in university, but school expect students to somehow miraculously master it themselves, but students find great difficulty in obtaining the proper resources and personnel to prepare themselves sufficiently for. But luckily for the privileged few, Professional Communications help to bridge this gap.

 At the end of this course, I am proud to say that I have learnt many valuable things, and most of them from unlikely teachers: my own peers. Through their presentations, I have gained much insight: from discovering myself; the A to Z of job interviews; how to write a business letter / survey / application letter etc; to being a good listener and how cultural differences may lead to ineffective communication, etc. But most of all, the most valuable and significant things I have learnt are not what was meant to be taught: it’s the value of friendship. ES2007S was one module that I have always looked forward to, because it’s enjoyable (a far cry from you-know-what modules) and interesting, and I’m sure many of you reading this will agree too J

So anyway, I’d like to say thanks to all my classmates who took this course with me, especially my group mates: Ka Yan and Edwin, for having the infinite patience to explain things to me, tolerating my stubbornness and still being so sweet; to Andy and Juan for tolerating my busy schedule and never once complaining – you guys are great! It was really a pleasure to be your groupmate; to all my other classmates and readers: for enduring my rants and listening while I was giving voice to my opinions (something that I was afraid to do until now); and lastly to Radhika, for being so considerate, patient and wonderful! You’re a wonderful facilitator and role model. It was particularly enjoyable to listen to your stories and I’m sure everyone agrees too.

Till then! J

#5 Reflection on Oral Presentation

In many job advertisements, effective communication skills are seen in almost everywhere. Have you ever paused to wonder why that is so? Why do we need good presentation skills to be an engineer/dentist/teacher?

Truth is, every job requires effective communication because you’ll have to work with other people. Regardless of whether it’s interpersonal, or within the office, or to clients, most likely you’d have to be presenting at one point in your working life. Therefore, it stands to reason that presentation skills are extremely important and critical to our success.

When I was in secondary school, presentation = going up to the whiteboard and writing your answers down. Or, it could mean ‘standing up and reading out your answers’. In my first year of university (and in fact, right up till the day I took this course), presentation meant typing out exactly what I was going to say and reading it out to the audience (with occasional glances up which were sporadic and looked like muscular twitches, to say the least).

But in the past 3 months, I have come a long way since then. Although I have received comments that my last presentation was not as good as my previous attempts, personally I felt that I have gained a lot in terms of experience. It really helps to learn how to present in front of a small class size, where everyone’s friendly and genuinely interested to help each other improve, and everyone knows everyone. Giving three presentations in a module also proved the old adage “practice makes perfect” to me. I have gained confidence, I have seen many inspirational role models, and come to realize that hey, giving the perfect pitch or presentation is actually within my reach, after all.

Nevertheless, there were still some things that I wish I could have done better. I have realized that having a good night’s sleep beforehand is extremely essential (although I wish I could have learnt that the easy way), and planning your wardrobe choices should be done the day before to prevent last-minute panic-attacks and hysterical ransacking of your closet; I also learn that standing up and clicking on your slides while vocalizing your speech also helps, rather than just sitting down and muttering to yourself, or thinking things through your head. Somehow, hearing my own voice is much different from thinking it. But then again, that’s just me. And lastly, there’s really no need to be nervous about the much-dreaded Q&A session that comes after. People are not “out to get you”, lecturers included, contrary to popular belief; the Q&A session is just to clarify people’s doubts about your presentation.

On that issue regarding Q&A: not sure about anyone else, but in the past when I have time constraints, ie. too much content to present within too short a time, I tend to leave important parts out in the slide, thinking, “I shall just leave it to the Q&A session so I can anticipate what people will ask.” But I’ve come to realize my mistake. Time constraints will always exist, but that does not give us the excuse to take out important parts. To me, the job of the presenter is to make sure that your audience’s knowledge is on par with yours. If they ask you about something you have already covered, then it probably means you weren’t doing a good job.

One thing that occurred to me after the presentation: when practicing and planning presentations, I should always leave buffer time for thought. And whenever faced with time constraints, never NEVER ever rush through by speaking in fast-forward mode: that just makes you unclear and ineffective as a speaker. You’re no longer speaking TO the audience, as should be, instead you are speaking AT the audience, and that does not engage them and hence make them lose interest. Instead, I have compensated by summarizing key points and leaving out details. After all, most audiences listening to pitches are typically concerned with whether the targets are met. (At least, that was what one lecturer confided in us after another presentation we were graded on, so it may differ on a case-by-case basis). Details could be included if there is sufficient time.

Once again, I thank my audiences for taking the time to read my thoughts here, and feel free to leave comments!