Final Reflection

I can still remember how apprehensive I was initially about taking this course. The heavy workload described by previous students was a main worry. Now, at the end of it, I am glad that we had taken up the challenge.

Most of us would probably have been exposed to the main principles of effective communication in the past. In this sense, what we have learnt in this class were not novel or unique ideas. However, what distinguishes this class from others in NUS is probably the opportunities that we had to practise these skills. Through this practices, I could feel myself gradually gaining confidence as well. For example, I have always wanted to be better at presenting. I would look at how some of my friends are so engaging and interesting, and wished I could be like them. After this course, however, I started to believe that with confidence, I am better than what I perceived myself to be. Even though I still hate presenting as much as I do before. Nevertheless, this is probably the most valuable aspect that I am able to take away from this course - the knowledge that I can be an effective communicator if I set my heart to it.

The job hunting aspect of the course was also extremely practical, especially for graduating students. I picked up an extremely useful tip in the process, that is, to be aware of what qualities and skills the employer is looking for. This applies to writing resumes, application letters and job interviews. I realised that I used to be too concerned about my own attributes, and failed to paint how I could be a good fit for the positions that I applied for in the past. Now, I cannot believe how I had overlooked something as fundamental as this. Hopefully, with this new insight, I will have more successes in the future!

Lastly, I would like to thank Brad for making the lessons far more interesting than most other NUS courses as well as his useful feedback for all our work. Also, to everyone in group 7, as helpful and friendly as can be!

Reflection on Oral Presentation

For this presentation, I felt that I was relatively more confident. We had a number of practices before, and this helped me to be more familiar with the content, and consequently, I was less nervous during the presentation itself. I also realised that the more nervous I am, the faster I tend to talk and the more likely I am to fumble over my words. Thus, I was glad that this time around, I felt that I stumbled less often than usual and was relatively more fluent than my usual self. In terms of articulation and projection, I thought that I was relatively fine as well. I felt that the slides were also visually appealing and helped especially in the comparison that I was trying to make, without being a distraction from the presentation.

However, I realised that I gestured excessively to the laptop screen in front of me, instead of at the projection that everyone was looking at. Towards the end of my presentation, I became more aware of this and tried to change accordingly. Also, I probably could have more eye contact with the audience, instead of looking at the screen in front of me. In terms of engaging the audience, I felt that I could probably be more interactive instead of focusing only on presenting my part well. I could also probably have been assertive in developing the argument and highlighting the problem.

In terms of the overall presentation, what I would especially liked to highlight were our slides and video. I thought that the slides looked professional, and this was actually my first presentation in which the slides were not made in the 'conventional' manner, filled with bullets and titles. It did seem to help make the presentation more professional. The videos that Jon made were also very useful in this aspect. I felt that as a group, our presentation flowed naturally and convincingly, where everyone's presentation and argument fitted nicely into the big picture. I hope that came across to the audience as well.

I will very much like to know what the audience thought about our presentation. Please feel free to post your comments, and thank you very much in advance.