It has been a fairly fast semester, and reflecting on my first post, I am mildly surprised at how much I have progressed, and how much I stick to 20 odd year old habits.
Literally speaking, my understanding of the value of communication skills has not changed. I still seriously believe it is important (anyone who says he doesn’t is really bold since this is graded :> ). On the other hand, I have gleaned a whole wealth of knowledge on many fine intricacies of communications. How to have effective communications (7 Cs), how to be mindful of intrinsic differences in the means of communications inter and intraculturally. To be reminded succinctly that the semantics of an exchange involves far more than the words verbalized but also nonverbal cues accompanying them.
I count the business correspondence and biodata posts as among the most important lessons learnt. The MOST important lessons learnt was from feedback of my peers. This feedback is much more valuable than anything one can get from simple scholarly pursuits of academia because it showed me the strength and weaknesses of what I had written. (I would like to take this opportunity to thank all who have given feedback, whether constructive or not as it means I do have areas to work on :> )
While I took this module at the urging of my friend, I have gained a whole lot of practical skills that I believe is far more important in my coming career than the pathological progression of Dengue haemorrhagic fever. I have thoroughly enjoyed the exchanges both cyber as well as in classrooms and the videos of terrible interviews tremendously. I do have a lot more I wish to enunciate, but alas, I am nearing the word limit. I shall conclude by expressing my gratitude to Mrs Richardson, who has facilitated this module wonderfully, and to my friends in ES2007S, all the best in your future endeavours (just please let us not be vying for the same job :> )
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Hi Jonathan,
ReplyDeleteYou said it very well. The main concepts of effective communication is known to all of us even before taking up the module. However, this module gave me many important reminders of the minor details that I always took for granted when communicating with people.
I also totally agree that the most important lessons we learnt were really those that we gather from talking to other people. The interaction time in class is what I look forward to the most in each class. =)
Samantha
Hi Samantha,
ReplyDeleteBeen nice knowing ya in class! Definitely agree that we know to pay more attention to minor details too. Good luck with your career after graduating!
Hello Jonathan,
ReplyDeleteIndeed, knowing all the complicated pathways and mechanisms of a protein, virus, bacterium etc. would amount to little if we are unable to express ourselves effectively through oral or written communication.
One of the major problems faced by many students (including me) is the inability to present our ideas in a coherent manner. Consequently, our ideas may not get delivered correctly and all the hard work will be deemed futile.
However, equipped with the skills gained during this course, I am sure that most if not all of us will be able to write better by applying the 7Cs to our daily work.
Trina
Hi Jonathan,
ReplyDeleteYou're right that the practical skills we have gained in this module is far more important than merely remembering factual knowledge like those of the pathological progression of Dengue haemorrhagic fever. It is in my opinion that if we have the effective communication skills, we would be empowered to seek out the information from others in a way which would make them respond to us willingly and delightedly.
As most of you have mentioned, the concepts of effective communication are not unfamiliar to most of us. But I believe when it comes to putting these concepts into action, each of us would have different level of competency. Therefore, the opportunities given to us within this module offers us the perfect platform to hone our communication skills.
Last but not least, I would like to say that it was pleasant working with you on the critique of the articles about the "Chinese Entrepreneurs" and "Pre-marital Sex".
Cheers
Caroline
Hi Trina,
ReplyDeleteYes, thank you for reminding me that 7Cs are important! These are definitely useful tools in effective communications!
Hi Caroline,
ReplyDeleteI definitely do think it would be good to work with someone who has at least the same level of communication skills!
It was a delight working with you too!
Hi,
ReplyDeleteYes, I do agree that feedbacks are important. With feedback, one can then understand what is lacking or not good enough. From it, he can then learn from his mistake and improve on it. (sounds like what I had said in my presentation ya?:)) I believe this is why NUS is always conducting the feedback survey on the modules that we took towards the end of each semesters.
All the best!
chau ting
Hi Chau ting,
ReplyDeleteYes, feedback is important, but more so constructive feedback which one sincerely feels is true. Many a time half-hearted feedback would be quite useless (I do give NUS surveys a piece of my mind) so hopefully it can be improved on!
You too!