Final Blog Post

Bidding for ES2007S bled me dry and I’ve declared my Program account bankrupt. However, I’m more than glad that I chose to take this module (also, since I’m graduating at the end of the semester, the idea of having zero points in my P account doesn’t seem so daunting).

I strongly commend NUS for the efforts taken to hone students’ soft skills. In Singapore, I feel that there’s a great deal of focus on technical knowledge, and too little focus on communication and people skills. In this day and age of faceless communication, the importance of these soft-skills seems to have been swept further under the rug. I feel that NUS should encourage more modules like ES2007S. Though it’s been a short 13 weeks, I think I’ve learnt a great deal in this module. From our skill-builders in the classroom, to working with our group-mates, and even trying our best to get rid of a particularly annoying blog-commenter, I feel that I have picked up important skills that I would otherwise not learn anywhere else. This module has not only been enriching and informative, but I actually looked forward to class every Monday and Thursday!

ES2007S has taught me a great number of skills—all of which I cannot possibly list here.  Probably the most important skill I’ve learned (or rather, fine-tuned) is that of oral presentation. I’ve always thought of myself as being someone who is able to speak comfortably in front of a crowd. I do feel butterflies in my tummy before speaking, but once I get through “Good morning, my name is Tanisha,” I usually calm down considerably and can get through the rest of the speech/presentation without a hitch. 

The last 12 weeks in ES2007S however, have made me realize that I have a whole lot to improve on when it comes to my presentation skills. First of all, I need to learn to relax, especially when it comes to ‘selling’ an idea or a proposal. I’m always under the impression that I need to look extremely emotionless and deadpan to bring across the notion that I’m a professional presenter. However, this has shown to be an ineffective way to bring across my message. Instead, I need to speak and behave naturally so as not to make my audience feel uncomfortable.

Another important skill I’ve learnt in ES2007S is that of team-work. Having been a member of quite a number of small groups in class (blog group, peer teaching group, research group etcetera), I feel that I’ve been made to work with people with different goals and ideals. This has made me realize and understand that not everyone shares my principles and I should not expect them too either. It is important to create an atmosphere of mutual trust, respect and reliability. I’m also glad that Brad shuffled us into different groups quite regularly. This is important as we not only get to meet and bond with different classmates; we also get to work with different people. This, I feel, represents a more realistic, workplace-like setting where we may get grouped with random strangers and be expected to work effectively with them. 

I would also like to make a quick note about our instructor, Brad. To be perfectly honest, I was a little apprehensive when I found out my teacher was going to be the module coordinator, Mr. Brad Blackstone. I had visions of a stern and serious tutor. Wow, was I wrong! Brad turned out to be the coolest teacher ever. (No, Brad, I’m not brown-nosing you!) What I like most about Brad is his ability to create a non-threatening, non-intimidating atmosphere in class. He takes each and every person’s comments seriously and I’ve never once heard him put down anyone’s ideas or comments, no matter how outlandish they may be.  Thank you, Brad, for being so patient and understanding towards all of us! I’m sure none of us will ever forget what a great time we had with you in class! 

I would also like to say a big ‘Thank you” to my classmates. All of you are really wonderful people and you’ve made this module very enjoyable indeed!

I can’t believe this is the final blog post for ES2007S. Life just seems to fly by so quickly!

Oral Presentation Reflection

Before class started on Monday, Brad told us an amusing story about the Great Wall of China. Essentially, despite the construction of such a majestic fortress, the Mongols still managed to invade China due to the fault of a corrupt guard. What I took away from this short story was the fact that things don’t always turn out the way you plan. Little did I know that the moral of this little story would be an eerily accurate foreshadowing of my presentation that afternoon! 

I met with my group mates Kristyn and Joel twice on the weekend before the presentation. We edited the slides and practiced the entire presentation many times. By the time we wrapped things up on Sunday afternoon, I felt rather confident that we would do a good job on Monday. Our slides looked good and I felt certain that I would be able to deliver a good presentation as I had memorized my lines to the letter. 

Sadly, when it came time for me to speak on Monday, I was so fixated on reciting my lines in verbatim that I forgot all the important non-verbal cues. My stance was too tense and rigid, I made minimal eye-contact with my audience and I spoke way too fast. Brad and my classmates also commented that I looked at the screen too much and I think this was due to the fact that I was standing askew when I should have been facing the audience.

I think my poor presentation can be attributed primarily to the fact that I memorized my script. Because I felt that a large percentage of my grade was riding on this presentation, I wanted everything to be perfect. Unfortunately, memorizing my lines robbed my presentation of any natural human emotion. 

For me, the biggest lesson I can learn from this incident is that I should rely more on my spontaneity when giving a presentation. Memorizing my lines makes me feel nervous and jittery, and I end up droning on and on like an automaton (hey, that rhymes!). I think I would have done a much better job had I been more confident in my ability to speak comfortably in front of an audience and not be so fixated on getting the words in perfect order. 

Apart from that, I thought our slides were clean-looking and easy to follow. However some of my classmates commented that the screenshots made the slides look very wordy. Brad said that we should have blacked out the screen after flashing the slides in order to draw attention to ourselves (the speakers). This is an interesting suggestion and I think it’s very helpful for presentations like ours where the images are screenshots of words. All in all however, I personally felt the slides were good!

Thank you everyone for your constructive feedback regarding my presentation skills! 

Thank you Kristyn and Joel for being such great group mates! The project did seem overwhelming at times, but all in all I think we did pretty okay!

Fostering Intercultural Communication--A Love Story

The intercultural ‘scenario’ you’re about to read is one that is relatively lengthy but very close to my heart. It is not a description of a single juncture in time, but rather a story of the seemingly unlikely union of two people.

As many couples would attest, marriage is hard work. It takes a significant amount of effort to overcome personal differences and make sacrifices and compromises. Different people have different backgrounds in terms of family structure, financial stability, education, beliefs and ideals. Interracial couples have additional, more inherent differences such as skin color, language, religious beliefs and so forth. Apart from that, interracial couples may have to deal with the added burden of negative stereotypes and derogatory comments by people who are not as open-minded to the idea of interracial relationships.
What makes an interracial marriage work? Before we go into that, let me introduce you to two very special people.

Ravinder Singh

Ravinder was born in Singapore in the late 1950’s to a humble Punjabi family. His father had come from India a few years before, and was struggling to make ends meet by starting up his own clothing business. Ravinder was English educated all his life. Even in those days in Singapore, it was mandatory for students to read a second language. At that time, Punjabi was not offered as a language, and many non-Tamil Indians in Singapore learned Malay as their second language. Ravinder is also able to speak colloquial Punjabi. Ravinder eventually made his way to NUS in the late 1970’s. Upon graduation, he began practicing as a lawyer, and continued to do so for the next 30 years.

Grace Tan
Grace was born in Singapore in the 1960’s into a wealthy Chinese family. Grace was brought up by her great-grandmother—a woman who was the epitome of class and refinement. As a young girl, Grace was an unwitting student in her great-grandmother’s home-based ‘finishing school’, where she learnt to always be gentle, well-mannered and cultured. Grace spoke almost no English while growing up as she was Chinese educated. She could speak a variety of Chinese dialects, as well as Malay.

Grace and Ravinder met each other in the 1980's. They dated for a couple of years, and when they decided to tie the knot, their decision was met with resistance from both their families. Both families held deeply-rooted stereotypes about the other’s race. Grace’s family thought that Indian men were excessive drinkers who beat their wives, and Ravinder’s family thought that all Chinese people were gamblers. However, Grace and Ravinder were determined to get married, and in April 1989, they tied the knot. 

If you haven’t already guessed it, Grace and Ravinder are my parents. As you can infer from the descriptions above, my parents come from very different backgrounds. In terms of race, language, religion, and even social backgrounds, my parents are nearly diametric opposites. So how did they manage to establish a relationship that defied the general norms of Singaporean couples in the 1980’s? Also, how did they manage to overcome the various religious, cultural and language barriers that had the potential to tear them apart?

Throughout the years, my parents have been through thick and thin together. From raising four wonderful children (hehehehe) to battling cancer, my parents have always stood by each other, and the issue of race and culture is almost never an issue. As a child, I never saw my parents as ‘Indian father’ and ‘Chinese mother’. In fact, if it wasn’t for the multitudes of questions and comments about my ethnicity, I wouldn’t even have realized that a biracial marriage was a big deal. Of course, as I grew older, I began to see things in a different light, and it finally hit me that my parents probably had to make quite a number of sacrifices in order to get and stay married. I’ve listed a few below.

 

#1: Language

When my parents met in the 1980’s, mom spoke minimal English, and she had no choice but to brush up on her English in order to hold a conversation with my father. Today, she is fluent in the language. In this respect, mom had to make special effort to pick up a language which was considered ‘foreign’ to her at the time. 

Also, while my siblings and I are all able to speak and write Mandarin pretty fluently, we know almost no Punjabi. My Punjabi grandparents have to speak to us in English, and they often express their disappointment at their grandchildren not being able to communicate with them in our ‘rightful’ mother tongue. However, my father decided that it was best for us study Mandarin instead of Punjabi, as he felt that it was a more useful in Singapore. (Most Punjabis in Singapore speak English anyway). 

#2: Religion

Another hot button issue I think many interracial/interreligious couples face is the religion (if any) in which their children should be raised. My mom was raised Buddhist and my dad was raised Sikh. To the surprise of many of my friends, both my parents are very tolerant and supportive of each other’s religions. I don’t ever recall my parents ever arguing having conflicts of interests in terms of which religion we should subscribe to. My siblings and I visit both the Buddhist and Sikh temples with my parents and I honestly cannot choose one religion over the other. 

#3: Holidays

Many people also ask me about the holidays I celebrate. I count myself very fortunate as I celebrate Chinese New Year and Deepavali (as well as many other Chinese and Indian holidays throughout the year). 

Of course there are countless other issues, but I can only describe so many. To sum up, my parents had to make quite a number of sacrifices and compromises in order to overcome their cultural and racial differences. However, I feel very blessed that I’ve been exposed to both Chinese and Indian cultures equally. My parents have made special efforts to ensure that we are proud of both our Chinese and Indian heritages. 

Today, interracial marriages are becoming increasingly common (approximately 17% of all marriages in Singapore in 2007 were interracial*) and many Singaporeans are becoming more receptive to the idea of marrying someone of a different race. Personally, I feel that this is a positive step towards racial and cultural understanding and harmony. However, there are still many who will fervently disagree. Still, interracial marriages are inevitable and will probably only increase in frequency, given the pervading forces of globalization and borderless communication. If we continue to hold on to unfounded stereotypes and unfair generalizations of different cultures, we will simply be alienating ourselves from the eventual ‘cosmopolitan culture’ of the future.

This April, my parents will be celebrating their 23^rd wedding anniversary. I want to dedicate this blog post to them. Their love and support for each other has touched and inspired me, and has reaffirmed my faith that cultural and racial differences need not be a barrier to any relationship.

*References:

http://www.singaporeunited.sg/cep/index.php/web/News-Room/No-mixed-feelings-over-mixed-marriages

Cover Letter

                                                                                                            85Happyface Lane
                                                                                                            Singapore777888
                                                                                                            Tel:91234567

                                                                                                             

                                                                                               10 Feb 2012

MrJohn Bravo
Director of Student/Alumni Affairs
Munster Polytechnic
1313 Mockingbird Lane
Singapore 666666

Dear Mr Bravo

I would like to express my interest in an entry level position in Munster Polytechnic. Throughout the years, I have come to respect Munster Polytechnic’s firm vision to be a world-class educational institution that grooms its students to become exceptional members of the workforce. Also, my personal experience during my internship at Munster Polytechnic-motivated me to seek employment in this institution. I would like to be considered for the Technical Support Officer Position in the Polytechnic, beginning in July 2012. I will be graduating from the National University of Singapore(NUS) with a BSc in Life Sciences (Environmental Biology) in June 2012.

Evidence of communication skills with students of all ages can be seen in my previous experience as private tutor and a teaching assistant.  I have had experience interacting with many students of upper-secondary and tertiary levels. Also, I am able to write and speak fluently in English,Mandarin and intermediate Bahasa Indonesia. I have had experience in leading groups of people to organize campus-wide events, during which I had to work long beyond my usual school hours. Also, I have keen interests in both the arts and sports.

Please review the enclosed resume for additional information about my past academic and work experience.I can be reached anytime via email at totalnutcase666@gmail.com,or on my mobile phone 91234567.

Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to speaking with you soon about this employment opportunity.

Yours Sincerely

(Insert Signature here)

Tanisha Manocha

Interpersonal Conflict

 Joe Jordon works in a large pharmaceutical company that manufactures antiretroviral drugs. The Research and Development (R&D) sector has been studying the possibility of treating AIDS by creating a suitable drug cocktail to eradicate the Human immunodeficiency virus, HIV. The company is a private enterprise which relies solely on its sales for revenue and does not receive any monetary endorsement from the government. Joe is an introverted, soft-spoken research assistance who works in the R&D laboratory. Though he is satisfied with his life as it is, he sometimes feels frustrated that he is not able to assert himself and prove his worth to the people around him. 

Owing to the fact that Joe is very meticulous and observant, he begins to realize that for every division of the R&D laboratory, different types of lab coats and disposable gloves are used. For instance, while the members of the virus-research team wear coats with metal buttons while the scientists in the drug-research team wear coats with plastic buttons. The only difference between these two types of coats is the price, as the buttons do not make a difference in the effectiveness of the coat. The gloves used are also different. Some use latex gloves while others use gloves made of vinyl or nitrile. The gloves also do not vary in effectiveness. Furthermore, Joe finds out that most people were using different lab coat and glove suppliers. The same lab coat that costs $10 from one supplier could cost $24.50 from another supplier!

Joe performs a few calculations and reaches the conclusion that the company could save up to $2 million over the next five years by simply ordering the cheaper lab coats and gloves across all the divisions in the company. One day, Joe manages to set up a meeting the head of the R&D department, detailing the amount of money the company has spent over the last 10 years on different types of lab coats and gloves. He includes pie-charts and diagrams and refers continuously to the company’s annual reports for each fiscal year. To top it all off, he provides list of cost-cutting protocols that he thinks the company should employ. 

Unfortunately, the head of the R&D department, Mr Martin Mule, remains unconvinced, and tells Joe straight out that he is unwilling to take such measures as he does not wholeheartedly understand and believe in its results. Mr. Mule says that the company has been bringing in a steady profit over the past decade and hence he doesn’t see the point in spending time and effort in something so insignificant. He brushes off Joe’s remonstration as pedantic, and tells him focus on his work and not be concerned about such peripheral issues.

Joe is now sitting alone on a bar-stool pondering over his next move. He remains 100% convinced that if he were to successfully transform the company’s poor purchasing habits, he could make a very big difference, and maybe one day would finally be given due recognition and acknowledgement for being a competent member of the company. The task now would be to convince his boss, who has a different set of beliefs, to set the wheels in motion.

How do you think Joe should go about convincing his boss to change his mindset? Keep in mind he has already made one attempt, which went awry.

Effective Communication dot com

While patiently waiting for inspiration to strike for this blog post, I was mindlessly surfing the internet and chanced upon a quotation by a famous American businessman, Peter F. Drucker. 

The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said.

As I’d read this quote after a thought-provoking discussion in class about the importance of non-verbal communication, I felt rather enlightened by this simple yet powerful statement. And I have to say that I agree fully with Mr Drucker. As many of us know, communication does not just include speech. Communication encompasses many other aspects such as emotion, tone and choice of words, just to name a few. After reading the quote, I started thinking about how communication has been so greatly influenced by technology over the last few decades.

I’m pretty sure that the whole discussion of how technology affects communication has been done to death. However I thought it’d be a pretty interesting topic to bring up for my very first blog post. After all, this in a module about communication, and here I am communicating with the world though this blog with the aid of technology! What strikes me most about technology in communication is that we rarely need to engage each other face-to-face. From sending e-mails, to making VOIP calls, to sending text messages, the importance of physical proximity is declining. With so many conduits of transmitting and receiving information, communication has become so easy, and yet so complex. We can communicate so much faster with a large number of people, but this comes with a price. Without face-to-face interaction, we have relatively little to work with when it comes to reading expressions or reactions that the other party is conveying. In other words, it gets slightly tricky to comprehend non-verbal communication.

Case-in-point: a rather amusing incident happened a few weeks ago. A friend of mine sent me a short joke via a text message. I read the joke (which I found really funny) and replied with a single word—“Hilarious”.
Within seconds, she responded. “It’s ok if you didn’t find it funny. That’s no reason to get sarcastic”. 

I was extremely surprised. I had genuinely felt that her joke was funny and responded so, but she misconstrued my message and thought I was being sarcastic. I called her immediately and explained what had happened, and she told me why she had come to the conclusion that I was being sarcastic. Firstly, I hadn't included a 'LOL' or 'Haha'. Secondly, I did not add a smiling emoticon. Thirdly, I could have added a little more embellishment to my message by telling her why I thought the joke was funny. I'd obviously made the grave mistake of making her misread my non-verbal signals.

I thought the whole incident was rather disturbing. Here I had hurt my friend’s feelings simply because she had misread the tone and emotion behind my response. I then thought to myself how much easier things would have been had she told me the joke to my face. She would then be able to see my reaction with her own two eyes.

I guess I’ve been feeling rather reflective about communication and how we are so dependent on technology to express ourselves. In the world of e-mails, text messages and instant messaging, we no longer need physical proximity nor speech to convey our thoughts and opinions. I guess I'm also feeling this way partly due to the fact that technology is penetrating our lives at a very quick rate, and we will have to be aware of certain etiquettes when we use technology in communication. Furthermore, I will now have to convey my thoughts and feelings on this blog quite regularly, and I hope that I'll be able to express myself clearly and effectively!

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