Saturday, November 14, 2009

Blog Post #9: Final Reflection

After completing ES2007S, I firmly believe that effective communication skills is essential in maintaining strong ties with family and friends; and good working relationships with people at work/school.

Through this course, I have gained an in-depth knowledge on effective communication skills. Initially, I considered myself to be a relatively effective communicator, who pays attention to people's emotions and feelings. However, this course has made me realised that this is a one-sided opinion on my part. This is because I have learnt that effective communication is a "two-way" process between two parties, just like it takes two hands to clap.

The course has taught me to be more aware of my non-verbal cues and how to be an "active listener". I think the latter is what I lack in at the beginning of the course. Subsequently, I took a conscious effort in putting the skill of "active listening" to better use in my group project, during the interview and group meetings.

Overall, I have gained numerous hard and soft skills from this course. The hard skills that I have learnt include apply 7Cs in my writings, writing impressive resumes and application letters, writing a persuasive formal proposal and making a lasting impression during an oral presentation. As for the soft skills that I have learnt, other than learning to be an active listener, I have also learnt the proper ways and channels of communication and putting them to good use during project discussions and when gathering data for my group’s proposal.

In a nutshell, I would like to thank Brad for facilitating our learning process during this semester, my team mates Rebecca and Napalie for giving me such a wonderful experience working with them; and classmates (including my blog groupmates, peer teaching groupmate and blogging buddy) for making our class so lively and interactive .

2 comments:

  1. Thank you, Patrick, for this complimentary reflection. It shows not just how you value what you have been working on and learned but also how the skills we have covered play such an important role in the communication process.

    I have to add that one strength of your own contribution to the course was the way you seemed to bring people together. In your project group this was especially apparent. I really appreciate that effort, and fee that such a talent will serve you well in the future.

    Best of luck, Patrick!

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  2. Hi Brad,

    Thank you very much for being the sole commenter to this blog post. I would think myself more as a harmonizer in our group. I believe one factor that brings everyone together is when all of us think win-win all the time especially when comes to allocation of workload and setting deadlines which everyone are comfortable with. It seems to create a positive atmosphere for my project group.

    Perhaps, I might have influenced my group mates to think in a positive manner as well. That was how we managed to cooperate and coordinate so effectively.

    I hope you will gloom ES2007S to become the most popular module in NUS :)

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