Final Reflection

I have never been a big fan of project work, because I always feel it's a kind of long-term torture. >< However, I have never felt that way during the entire course of this ES2007S project. :) I guess it was made bearable and even pleasurable by my awesome group mates - Jacinth, Caleb and Johnny. I believe I would never have done the project this well alone and I would never dare to take up this huge responsibility alone.

Our team usually decides on ideas and things very quickly after everyone voices out their opinion. On our first meeting, we decided to narrow down to the topic on sustainable growth. Immediately, we decided to do more research by a deadline and I went on to do up the Gantt chart on NUS wiki and everyone referred to it and met the deadlines. We also made use of NUSwiki to put up the minutes after each meeting so each person knows what he/she has to do. It was pretty effective at the start when we’re just deciding the roles and responsibilities of each person and the deadlines that we set. However, when we started to write the proposal, we tried using the macro function of NUSwiki of embedding the Microsoft word (MSword) document on the wiki page. Unfortunately, it was not very effective because it was very troublesome. Somehow I couldn’t open the macro directly from the wiki page using my home computer, so I had to download the attachment, edit it, and then upload it onto wiki again. We tried using google docs at first too, but we realise it will screw up the formatting (from past experience) so we decided to use MSword directly. Finally when NUSwiki was shut down for a week for maintenance, I decided to make use of dropbox to share our documents and even our research. Ever since I started using dropbox, I have fallen in love with it. <3 The only problem with it is that it cannot tell you when two or more people are viewing that same file, resulting in your saved file being overwritten or conflicted. Thankfully, Jacinth suggested a brilliant idea of copying the file onto our own desktop and then edit it and save under a new name and upload it back into dropbox. We also complement each other very well in the sense that we all work at different time of the day, so we usually will not be in conflict.

Other than the “hardware”, I think generally our “software” was great too. Meetings were never a bore with Johnny Lim (bei) and Caleb (batman) there. Although we joke, we still get our work done, so it is the best of both worlds. We have mutual respect and will always listen (not hear) carefully to everyone’s ideas and opinions before deciding on something. Overall, I think our team dynamics has been great since the start. One reason might be because I have been friends with Caleb and Johnny for the past 3 years; so it was comfortable working with them. It was very easy for me to communicate with them as well. I could just text them through SMS or MSN or even discuss face-to-face because we see each other every lecture. I also worked with Jacinth for the peer teaching prior to this proposal project, so we were more or less familiar with each other. We started off using emails as a tool for communication but slowly shifted to SMS because it is much faster (because I’m the only one without a smart phone).

Now that the semester has come to an end, I kind of miss having ES2007S lessons because every lesson has been very interesting, interactive and never boring. This module has equipped me with essential communication skills that will definitely be useful in future and I hope it will give me an edge over the other engineers who did not take this module. :P

Reflection on Oral Presentation

I know I speak fast, but I never knew I speak THAT fast until I saw the video of our mock presentation. Fortunately (or unfortunately for some people), that is not the fastest I can go. Anyway, my point being, we can never truly "SEE/HEAR" ourselves until we record it down. Thus, I'm really glad I took this module which gave me this opportunity to record our oral presentation on video.

I actually realised that I spoke a tad too fast during our mock presentation immediately after I finished presenting. I think that probably happened because I was a little nervous. Thus, during the preparation for the actual presentation, I practised speaking slowly and have longer pauses. I also kept reminding myself to speak slower during the actual presentation.

Besides the speed of my speech, I noticed from the video of our mock presentation that my fringe was actually damn irritating because it made me keep doing the “Bieber-swish”. My hair was also pretty untidy (in my opinion) with all my baby hair jutting out. I never noticed these little things because they look fine when I’m just conversing normally with friends or even on still pictures, but it is not the case when I have to give a presentation. Little gestures like these can be distracting, thus I decided to pin up my hair neatly for the actual presentation and also avoid having to look down at my cue cards, so my fringe won’t fall down. I also noticed that I tend to read from my cue cards although I did make a conscientious effort to make eye contact with the audience. But the head moving up and down up and down is still pretty distracting in my opinion. Therefore I made sure I know my content very well for the actual presentation so that I can diminish my reliance on my cue cards.

Overall, I think we did well as a team and I have to thank Team Jabe Joca, for having such wonderful people that I can work closely and effectively with. It is only because of our good team dynamic that made me comfortable and relaxed to perform well. Not forgetting also, the comments and remarks from Dr Jaidev and our fellow classmates that help shape what I am or we are today.
Finally, the most important thing I learnt about presentation is - PREPARATION & PRACTICE. Although some people may disagree, because they say too much preparation will kill the creativity. However, I must say preparation does not kill creativity, memorisation does. Though this might not be true for everyone because everyone works differently. At least for me, I realised typing the script out before writing the cue cards helped me to know my content better, thus it is easier for me to generate the points and form proper sentence during presentation. Last but definitely not least is to practise to make sure I know the flow of my presentation and my content.