Some Final Thoughts

Time really flies and the past 12 weeks of lessons in this module ES2007S have simply breezed past me. I'm glad that I have a little bit of time to think about what I've learnt over the semester.


When I first signed up for this module, it was through one of the recommendation emails that are sent through the circular before each semester starts. I had a pretty good experience in a similar module two years ago and I thought that it would be an opportunity to learn some "soft skills" such as writing, project group work and presentation skills.

I believe that one of things I managed to learn the most is being poised and calm during presentations. Sometimes, I fall victim to having last minute jitters and have a shaky start when it's my time to speak up. But over the lessons, I had many more opportunities to present my views (compared to Science lessons) and share with my classmates. I've learnt to spend a bit of time to organise my thoughts and construct a simple and coherent message that best brings across my views. Of course, I feel that it will still take me many years of practice to become a truly competent speaker but right now I feel that I'm in the right direction!


Another area that I had more experience in was in project work. To be honest, I never really fancied working in teams because of different personalities, schedules and working preferences. I had a bad experience back in Year 1 when I had two project members who simply didn't cared and left another friend and I to do everything. To add insult to injury we got a D for the project...

But I feel that I really struck the lottery with my group mates Linna, Alex and Shi Chie. They come across as confident and intelligent individuals who take pride in their work and also strive for the best. We also have lunches after our lessons together, chatting about everything under the sun and I believe that made us understand each other better and build stronger trust in our abilities. Throughout the project, we managed to work seamlessly and give each other support and it really made working with them easy for me. 

Really had fun working with these awesome people. 

Lastly, I will also mention Mdm Fazilah and the rest of the classmates whom I've learnt so much from through our interactions over the past weeks. Through each presentation, interview and peer teaching session, I managed to gain much more experience by watching and learning from all of you. Thank you for commenting on my blog and giving me advice!

I wish all of you good luck in your future endeavours, especially to those who are graduating from NUS and stepping out into the brave new world. Take care! =)

Jay 

On the Stage

Last Friday was our presentation day! It was the culmination of all the things that we have learnt our the semester and my team and I were eager to get on and showcase what we have been working on for the past few weeks. We were presenting on our proposal of implementing a buddy system in NUS for new undergraduate students as part of our project coursework.

I remember that the teams had to draw lots to decide the order of presentation. I never had much luck when it comes to picking places so Linna represented our team. She did brilliantly and drew us a number 2!

On the day of the presentation, our group met an hour earlier to practice our presentation and collaborate on what we were going to say. Having presented together once before (during our peer teaching session), I had a lot of confidence in my group mates. I saw how Shi Chie, Linna and Alex performed under the watchful eyes of my classmates and I thought they would do as brilliantly this time round. 

Once again, we stuck to the mantra of "simple is better". We had a simple PowerPoint presentation planned out and put in a couple of funny pictures to help illustrate our points. I made sure that none of the slides were too wordy so that it wouldn't put people off because I always believed that a presentation should involve some actual presenting by the speaker. Other than that, our preparations were quite muted, with each member just reading their own scripts and pacing themselves. The time ticked away and then we entered the classroom to set up.

Just before showtime, our classmates gathered and we were having a rather casual chatting session. It was actually a brilliant way to relax and ease the tension! When Mdm Fazilah announced that we should get started, I just popped onstage and began my piece. The only thing that was bothering me was my sore throat so I felt I rushed through my part a little. By the time I finished my throat felt like a piece of dry parchment. 

Personally, I felt that my group mates once again did a great job during the presentation. Shi Chie prepared cue cards beforehand but didn't use them much at all and engaged the audience well. Linna was poised as ever and Alex really carried the show in the end. The only slight blip was when I was controlling the slideshow but there were a few blips along the way! But we fended off the Q&A session quite calmly at the end and it was a huge relief.

In conclusion, I was really pleased at the our group's performance. I felt that we had a lot of belief in our skills as presenters,thorough knowledge of our content and most importantly confidence in each other. I hope that everyone had a good time at our presentation as well!