The purpose of taking this Professional Communication module is to develop my communication skills, build new networks and be more competent in job applications.
After going through the whole course, I learnt many useful techniques to improve my communications skills, such as minutes writing, resume and job application letter, 7Cs in business writing etc. Knowledge is not everything. We have to deal with many people in our daily life. The soft skills learnt in this course will be helpful in developing my future networks.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mrs Fiona Richardson for her kind guidance, my blog buddy Nicole to edit my post all the time, my research project mates Jimmy and Mei Ling for their hard work and all other friends in the same class. It is my pleasure to know you all. And I wish all of you all the best in your future endeavors.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Biodata
I regard myself as an intelligent person, growing and learning everyday. Applying knowledge into real life is interesting and exciting for me such as using finance knowledge in gambling and choosing the best route from home to school to minimize the travel time or have a balance in the comfort and the time taken. I am also very interested in watching and playing various sport activities such as soccer, basketball and badminton. I also participated in several cultural groups such as Chinese drama, Choir and Chinese Orchestra, and performed in various competitions as well as in front of the public.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Reflection on the Research Project Experience
I have had very good experiences working with my team members Jimmy and Mei Ling. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for their work done on this project. We would not be so efficient without the good coordination among three of us.
We did have some differences and arguments in the process. However, I think that was not very important after we went through all the hard work together. We managed to use the knowledge we learnt in the ES2007S class to communicate with each other in a more efficient way. We also make good use of each other’s strength and interests when allocate the work so that the efficiency was really high. I think we managed to use the shortest possible time to produce the highest possible quality work. It was really good experience to practice the techniques learnt in the class into a small project like this.
In fact, we are a much diversified team with members from Singapore, Malaysia and China. I was actually missed one important meeting with them and did not help much in the final part of the report due to some personal reasons and really packed schedules recently. I really appreciate their understandings and the amount of work they have done for me. Really, I would like to thank them very much as I know that they are both busy with mid-term exams and also some other projects. With the understandings shown and the help we offered to each other, we have done a pretty good job this time. I hope we will have an excellent presentation of the report in a few weeks time. Good luck and all the best for everbody.
We did have some differences and arguments in the process. However, I think that was not very important after we went through all the hard work together. We managed to use the knowledge we learnt in the ES2007S class to communicate with each other in a more efficient way. We also make good use of each other’s strength and interests when allocate the work so that the efficiency was really high. I think we managed to use the shortest possible time to produce the highest possible quality work. It was really good experience to practice the techniques learnt in the class into a small project like this.
In fact, we are a much diversified team with members from Singapore, Malaysia and China. I was actually missed one important meeting with them and did not help much in the final part of the report due to some personal reasons and really packed schedules recently. I really appreciate their understandings and the amount of work they have done for me. Really, I would like to thank them very much as I know that they are both busy with mid-term exams and also some other projects. With the understandings shown and the help we offered to each other, we have done a pretty good job this time. I hope we will have an excellent presentation of the report in a few weeks time. Good luck and all the best for everbody.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Blog Post 4: Evaluating Intercultural Behavior
When I worked in a restaurant, I had to face different customers from different countries. Indeed, they are very different in their behaviors. I shall just illustrate on some groups of people here.
Japanese: Usually, I can classify Japanese customers into two types. One type is family gathering; the other type is business related dining. For the first group of people, usually, the male dominates the whole process; women just follow and eat what has been ordered. For the second group of people, they are more formal and they follow the hierarchy strictly during the dining. Sometimes, when the important guest arrives, the juniors even queue up nicely and bow to the guest. They treat their senior staff or guests like god which is rarely seen in any other cultures. Generally, they are polite and the tables are very clean after eating. However, they do not give tips to the service.
Indonesian: Usually, they are very rich people who always in restaurants. They like to enjoy good service so that some of them even tip the staff before they order the food. They are very generous especially for those who always come to our restaurant.
Westerners: They are generally very generous, too. However, they like to enjoy the environment more than the food itself. They like to order a lot of drink and always response to the services provided courteously which is very heartwarming to the service staffs.
Religious Groups: For customers with certain religions, they have restrictions on certain types of food. Some of them are very particular about this. So the staffs have to be very careful when serving them.
Some people may think that serving food in restaurant is easy. But I would say, if you want to provide good service to your customers, it is not so easy, especially when you work in a place like Singapore, where it is very international. Spending some time to understand your customers, your life will be a lot easier and, sometimes, it is rewarding as well.
Japanese: Usually, I can classify Japanese customers into two types. One type is family gathering; the other type is business related dining. For the first group of people, usually, the male dominates the whole process; women just follow and eat what has been ordered. For the second group of people, they are more formal and they follow the hierarchy strictly during the dining. Sometimes, when the important guest arrives, the juniors even queue up nicely and bow to the guest. They treat their senior staff or guests like god which is rarely seen in any other cultures. Generally, they are polite and the tables are very clean after eating. However, they do not give tips to the service.
Indonesian: Usually, they are very rich people who always in restaurants. They like to enjoy good service so that some of them even tip the staff before they order the food. They are very generous especially for those who always come to our restaurant.
Westerners: They are generally very generous, too. However, they like to enjoy the environment more than the food itself. They like to order a lot of drink and always response to the services provided courteously which is very heartwarming to the service staffs.
Religious Groups: For customers with certain religions, they have restrictions on certain types of food. Some of them are very particular about this. So the staffs have to be very careful when serving them.
Some people may think that serving food in restaurant is easy. But I would say, if you want to provide good service to your customers, it is not so easy, especially when you work in a place like Singapore, where it is very international. Spending some time to understand your customers, your life will be a lot easier and, sometimes, it is rewarding as well.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Blog Post : Potential Research Project Topics
Student accommodation on NUS campus is always a hot issue among NUS students. However, students may realize that it is much more difficult to secure a place in anyone of the student hostels than before. The purpose of this research is to give NUS students a better understanding of the current situation in the issue of student accommodation so that they could have a better plan before it is too late to look for alternative sources for accommodation.
There are many reasons for the fact that students in NUS have to put in more effort in their CCA and pay more for the accommodations on campus. For simplicity purpose, I only focus the discussion on the pricing of the stay on campus.
For the supply side of the problem, NUS is not able to create more rooms for the students in the short term. This is due to the limitation of the land around the campus. Also, it will take quite some time to get the job done. So it is not possible to increase the supply in the short term. The number of rooms available for the students is fixed.
However, the demand from the students is increasing more rapidly. Every year, NUS has to provide accommodation for certain groups of people like exchange student, USP students, first year for the local students and first two years of stay for overseas students and so on. So the rooms left are quite limited. In order to get the room, the students have to compete with their CCA points from University or Hall activities. The points needed for a room in the history almost kept unchanged until this year. The increase in the CCA points surprised many students. Many people became homeless in a sudden and need to look for other ways to solve the problem. However, the off-campus rental is also expensive since the property price in Singapore has appreciated a lot since last year. Therefore, more students want to stay on campus. Furthermore, the number of freshmen in NUS this year is a lot more than the past. And this number will keep growing in the future. These factors all make the competition for a room on campus more intense.
The only thing the OSA did to reduce the demand is to increase the price. The price for a room in this academic year has increased 25% based on the previous figures. And it will increase again for the following years. However, this is not very effective as the general price level and the rental for a room outside campus increased much more than the increase in a room on campus.
The OSA also changed the waiting list policy from the first-come-first-serve basis to the balloting approach. The students have less control about the process in this case. However, this did not reduce the demand. The students on the waiting list could not do any planning before knowing the outcome of the process.
To complete the research, I would like to conduct a survey to randomly selected NUS undergraduates to ask their feedbacks on the campus stay and other alternatives. Also, I am interested to know how much effort they are willing to put in for their CCAs to secure a place on campus based on different prices for the room. The purpose of the survey is to illustrate how competitive the situation is. So that the students could plan early in order to avoid any inconvenience caused when they have nowhere to stay in the new semester, if they are not able to meet the requirement.
There are many reasons for the fact that students in NUS have to put in more effort in their CCA and pay more for the accommodations on campus. For simplicity purpose, I only focus the discussion on the pricing of the stay on campus.
For the supply side of the problem, NUS is not able to create more rooms for the students in the short term. This is due to the limitation of the land around the campus. Also, it will take quite some time to get the job done. So it is not possible to increase the supply in the short term. The number of rooms available for the students is fixed.
However, the demand from the students is increasing more rapidly. Every year, NUS has to provide accommodation for certain groups of people like exchange student, USP students, first year for the local students and first two years of stay for overseas students and so on. So the rooms left are quite limited. In order to get the room, the students have to compete with their CCA points from University or Hall activities. The points needed for a room in the history almost kept unchanged until this year. The increase in the CCA points surprised many students. Many people became homeless in a sudden and need to look for other ways to solve the problem. However, the off-campus rental is also expensive since the property price in Singapore has appreciated a lot since last year. Therefore, more students want to stay on campus. Furthermore, the number of freshmen in NUS this year is a lot more than the past. And this number will keep growing in the future. These factors all make the competition for a room on campus more intense.
The only thing the OSA did to reduce the demand is to increase the price. The price for a room in this academic year has increased 25% based on the previous figures. And it will increase again for the following years. However, this is not very effective as the general price level and the rental for a room outside campus increased much more than the increase in a room on campus.
The OSA also changed the waiting list policy from the first-come-first-serve basis to the balloting approach. The students have less control about the process in this case. However, this did not reduce the demand. The students on the waiting list could not do any planning before knowing the outcome of the process.
To complete the research, I would like to conduct a survey to randomly selected NUS undergraduates to ask their feedbacks on the campus stay and other alternatives. Also, I am interested to know how much effort they are willing to put in for their CCAs to secure a place on campus based on different prices for the room. The purpose of the survey is to illustrate how competitive the situation is. So that the students could plan early in order to avoid any inconvenience caused when they have nowhere to stay in the new semester, if they are not able to meet the requirement.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Resolving Interpersonal Conflic
This is not really an interpersonal conflict. Maybe I would just like to get some of the thoughts from you, my dear readers. Sometimes, you may face the same problem when you have to make a decision like this.
I am a final year student. I am facing a problem to choose my FYP topic. There are two supervisors for me to choose. One is Prof Tan; the other is Prof Chen (the names are not real).
The good thing about Prof Tan is that his topics are relatively easier and his knowledge is not solid. The bad thing about him is that he is not a nice person as I have been taken some modules which conducted by him and I did not give a good impression to him as well. He likes to make simple things complicated and intend to make lots of troubles to his students. Although the topics were relatively easy, I was sure it will not be an enjoyable process. And the results may not be good also.
For Prof Chen, I only get to know him this year. He has a clear mind about his work so that his topics are really specific about something and it is very deep. To get a good result, I need to really work hard and get the work done properly which means a lot of time has to be spent on this project. He is strict to his student. The outcome of the work is everything, no matter how you get it done.
If you are the one who faces this situation, who are you going to choose? What strategies are you going to use to work with each one of them (i.e. how to improve the relationship with them?)? Also, you need to find a balance point for your FYP work and other work.
I am a final year student. I am facing a problem to choose my FYP topic. There are two supervisors for me to choose. One is Prof Tan; the other is Prof Chen (the names are not real).
The good thing about Prof Tan is that his topics are relatively easier and his knowledge is not solid. The bad thing about him is that he is not a nice person as I have been taken some modules which conducted by him and I did not give a good impression to him as well. He likes to make simple things complicated and intend to make lots of troubles to his students. Although the topics were relatively easy, I was sure it will not be an enjoyable process. And the results may not be good also.
For Prof Chen, I only get to know him this year. He has a clear mind about his work so that his topics are really specific about something and it is very deep. To get a good result, I need to really work hard and get the work done properly which means a lot of time has to be spent on this project. He is strict to his student. The outcome of the work is everything, no matter how you get it done.
If you are the one who faces this situation, who are you going to choose? What strategies are you going to use to work with each one of them (i.e. how to improve the relationship with them?)? Also, you need to find a balance point for your FYP work and other work.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Effective Communication Skills
Developing effective communication skills is important to me as it helps me widen my current social networks, create new networks and it also enables me to understand others more effectively.
Friends play an important role in ones life, and I am of course not an exception. It is often easier if you can share some common interests and exchange ideas on an interesting topic when you want to make a friend and know more about a person. Here we need some skills like how to initiate a conversation, how to interest people in your area of interest and how to listen attentively and ask relevant questions etc.
In creating new networks, people need to know how to make use of the current network and develop new networks from that. The power of one man is limited. We have friends; our friends also have their friends. When one needs help, we should never restrict ourselves within the small networks that we have. We can always outsource from friends’ network or perhaps get to know new friends who are not at all linked to us. This seems quite difficult. However, if we can consciously develop our network, we can easily find somebody to help when the need arises.
Lastly, understanding others, sometimes, could be a difficult task. There are many communication barriers when it comes to dealing with people from different backgrounds. These differences could range from culture, religion, gender to personal traits. Here, we need to have some basic understandings with regards to the people we are dealing with. Also, we have to take note of the ways they communicate with us, such as gestures, actions and tones which may be very different from what we think or what we expect.
It is always easier to say than done. If we could stick to the skills of communication in our daily life, our lives would definitely be easier than before.
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