Blog Post #5: Evaluating Intercultural Behavior

Intercultural Scenario:

During my third year undergraduate in NUS, I was given the opportunity to participate in the Student Exchange Program (SEP) to University of Arizona in United States. This experience allowed me to immerse in different cultural environment where I had the chance to observe contrasting behaviors between Asian and American students in classes and their different living habits.

Most Americans in Arizona relied more on verbal communication, less on circumstances and non-verbal cues to convey messages. Thus, they were usually direct, precise and explicit in their communication. For instance, lectures in the university was usually more interactive and informative where American students were proactive in posing questions to clear their doubt at the same time the answers to these questions also benefited other students as well. However, cohabiting with them could be problematic sometimes as they might lack tolerant towards other tenant’s habits and their strong sense of individualism created new problems to the community in the house. For example, they would complain how the other Asian roommates call their family during night time (which they had to call usually around 10pm due to time difference) disrupted their studies or sleeps yet they love to bring up their music volume and sing along loudly during the day, totally oblivious towards other roommates having their mid term exam around the corner.

In contrast, most Asian students (Chinese and Singaporeans) relied less on verbal communication and more on nonverbal cues and implicit information, shared by their own group in the communication, to convey messages. As a result, they can appear indirect in their verbal communication. For instance, Asians students in the university were much more reserved or self conscious and they would generally copy notes quietly during lecture. Even if they had any opinions, they would usually keep it to themselves or within their cliques. During a biochemistry class, a few Asian students gathered after a biochemistry lecture, commenting the way the American professor was giving that lecture. They were complaining how fast the lecturer spoke and they couldn’t catch the words. If they had approached the professor, they could work out a win-win situation with the professor. On the other hand, they were excellent roommate as they possess a strong sense of “Communitarianism”; their shared values on the importance of living as a family, to share what they have and accept/ tolerate different people’s habits.

What I learnt from this scenario:

I remembered Brad shared the concept of culture in class. He mentioned that the expressions of culture which could be seen like behaviour, clothing and food while those that were intrinsic were the underlying attitudes, beliefs, values, and meanings.

I believe to achieve effective communication across cultures, it is important to understand the underlying factors responsible for those differences on top of recognizing different behaviours express by people from different culture

Although, I did not had the same level of interaction with fellow Asians or Americans, I feel that it is important to treat everyone equally and humbly to prevent prejudice and to learn how different culture sees life in different perspective. Hence, the first step I took towards more effective intercultural communication was to increase my awareness of those crucial underlying factors starting firstly with my own cultures before I could continue to explore different cultural perspective towards values.

It is only with a better understanding of these factors that I can see things in the eyes of other people, to empathize with them, before I can communicate more clearly and build more meaningful relationships I encounter.

Blog Post #4.1: Personal Statement (Edited)

My experience in life is one adventure where I set out to pursue my goals and aspirations. One of my guiding philosophies in life is to undertake ‘Human Revolution’ in my own life; to resolve and take concrete action to surmount my own limitation. With this principle in life, I took full responsibility of my life to seek ways to polish and to build my strong character.

Since three years ago, I set my long term goal towards the field of research in chemistry. Beginning with that goal in mind, I worked with my short term goals, avoided being result oriented and prioritized my work to develop my soft skills which would be important in the long run. This is one of the important soft skills I had learnt from my favorite book ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey’. I saw how my life transformed from winning for myself to winning for others by taking my first step to be proactive in life; I recalled the vivid image of myself during my first year in university, boldly volunteered to work in my professor, Dr Lu Yixin’s research laboratory. I was determined to accept hardship and treated every session in the laboratory seriously, because every moment was an important step towards building my research foundation and to develop my interpersonal skills with my mentor and colleagues. The opportunity to work in a laboratory changed my perception of research as a job for hermit crab to one which requires tremendous amount of team dynamics.

My desire to explore the world to be my stage propelled me to apply for sponsored exchange program to University of Arizona. I was able to spend six months in Dr Victory J. Hruby’s research laboratory to engage in challenging research work to synthesize novel amino acid by developing novel synthesis pathway. Exploring into unknown pathways often lead to discouraging failures as it was extremely difficult to optimize the reaction condition for each synthesis pathways. But our dauntless mind and determined heart persisted, and eventually our team effort gained us sweet success in obtaining high amount of product yield and near perfect enantioselective chiral products. Despite my membership to Dr Hruby’s group was short, I was grateful to be respected as an asset to this team. This experience taught me the greatness of teamwork and perseverance.

To repay my gratitude to my country which gloomed me to be what I am today, I participated in various community services. Through this process of helping others to gain their own victory in life, I understood the importance of respecting people around me regardless of their social status. Being a trainer for numerous public performance, there were occasions when rehearsals and training with fifty participants twice a week became a chore. However, all the grateful words from my participants about how they benefited from all the past trainings at the end of every performance kept my heart burning with fresh determination. Thus, I learnt that being a trainer is not simply training others but it was a role to polish my own character and fulfill my ‘human revolution’.

An inspiring writer Dr Daisaku Ikeda once wrote, “No matter what kind of difficult situation one may find oneself in, some opening, some opportunity to fight one's way out, can always be found. What's most important is to hold fast to hope, to face the future with courage.” With hope and courage, I can overcome deadlocks in my life and open new frontiers in my research endeavours.

Blog Post #4: Personal Statement

My experience in life is one adventure where I set out to pursue my goals and aspirations. One of my guiding philosophies in life is to undertake ‘Human Revolution’ in my own life; to resolve and take concrete action to surmount my own limitation. With this principle of life, I took full responsibility of my life to seek ways to polish and to build strong character, and actively challenged my shortcomings rather than taking shortcuts and hiding my weaknesses. Thus, this enabled me to treat everyone with humility and to live a life away from self-centeredness.

Since three years ago, I set my long term goal towards the field of research in chemistry. Beginning with that goal in mind, I worked with my short term goals, avoided being result oriented and prioritized my work to develop my soft skills which would be important in the long run. This is one of the important skills I had learnt from my favorite book ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey’. I saw how my life transformed from winning for myself to winning for others by taking my first step to be proactive in life; I recalled the vivid image of myself during my first year in university, boldly volunteered to work in my professor, Dr Lu Yixin’s research laboratory. It was my courage and will to step out of my comfort zone, to be independent and to see how the world can be my stage; I was able to spend six months in Dr Victory J. Hruby’s research laboratory to engage in serious research work and to interact with fellow American students in University of Arizona under sponsorship from National University of Singapore.

Through participation in various community services to gain victory for others, I understood the importance of being courteous to people whom I was commuting with; showing respect for people around me (regardless of their social status) allowed me to inculcate humility. Thus, I could learn from others in every way. Being a trainer for numerous public performance, there were numerous occasions when training fifty participants twice a week became a chore especially when I played this role for seven years. However, my strong determination and perseverance, and the satisfaction I gained from all the grateful words from my participants about how they benefited from all the past trainings at the end of every performance kept me going through these years. I realized that being a trainer is not simply training others but it is about training my own personality and interpersonal communication skills such as empathy and active listening.

An inspiring writer Dr Daisaku Ikeda once wrote, “No matter what kind of difficult situation one may find oneself in, some opening, some opportunity to fight one's way out, can always be found. What's most important is to hold fast to hope, to face the future with courage.” With hope and courage, I can definitely overcome deadlocks in my life and future research endeavours.

Blog Post #3 : Application Letter (Draft 2)

Job Title :
Graduate Student for PhD. Chemistry

Institution :
University of California, Los Angeles

Admission Requirements :
1. Students from schools in the British tradition must have completed an Honours degree in first or upper second class.
2. GRE: General required for all and Subject required for international
students
3. 3 recommendation letters
4. Statement of Purpose
5. Supplementary information (similar to resume)
6. Departmental application letter

BLK 172 Hougang Ave 1
#12-1443 Singapore 530172

4 September 2009

Steven Nelson
Chairman, UCLA Graduate Council
4006 Young Hall Box 951569
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1569

Dear Mr. Nelson

RE: Application for PhD Graduate program in Chemistry Department of UCLA

From my research on various Chemistry Graduate programs offered in the United States, I understand UCLA offers a competitive and comprehensive Graduate program for aspiring chemist to enhance their research field experience and knowledge in advanced chemistry for future related endeavors. This program requires critical and creative minds to develop new frontier in different chemistry research areas, and I believe that I can fulfill the expectation to qualify in this program.

During past three years of my studies at the National University of Singapore (NUS), I was involved in numerous research programs in Organic Synthesis with Dr Lu Yixin’s research group to reinforce my foundation in scientific research techniques as well as to expand my knowledge in advance Organic Chemistry reactions. During six months Student Exchange Program (SEP) to University of Arizona under sponsorship from National University of Singapore, I had the privilege to venture beyond classroom learning to hands-on with expensive analytical instrument. Furthermore, I engaged in research work involving Peptide Chemistry in Dr Victor Hruby’s group with two pending publications. With these experiences, I am confident in establishing independent research in different areas of Organic and Biological Chemistry.

Apart from my academic experiences, I participated actively in various community services, served as the president of students’ council and competed in various sports events. These enabled me to excel under tremendous pressure and to engage proactively in my community events. I can be an asset to serve and initiate activities for the student community in UCLA.

I will be receiving Bachelor of Science in Chemistry Degree (Hons.) from NUS in July 2010. By then, I would have completed coursework in the 4 major branches of Chemistry, namely Organic, Inorganic, Physical, Analytical Chemistry and a Final Year Research Project, specialising in the field of Organic Chemistry. I prioritized my focus in Organic and Analytical Chemistry to gear towards my career goal in Medicinal Chemistry, an emerging area with promising development through studies on drug design and mechanism.

It is my goal to combine my range of experience with my ability to be an aspiring chemist. I am delighted to discuss my qualifications with you for the scholarship for graduate program. I look forward to meeting you. You may reach me via my email contact; patrick_lee30@hotmail.com.

Thank you for your time. I look forward to hearing a favourable reply from you.

Sincerely


Lee Kwang Soo

Enclosure: Resume