Final Reflection on Learning

And that is how it ends. After four gruelling months of studies, assignments, and deadlines, yet another semester of my university education has come to an end. For me, this also marks the end of my NUS adventure. Having come here for a semester-long exchange from NTU, the entire exchange experience has certainly been very memorable for me.

I am immensely glad that I decided to complete my Professional Communications module here in NUS. It has given me the opportunity to get to know so many different students from various courses, backgrounds, and nationalities. The course has also granted me the opportunity to work with these amazing people who have taught me so much about teamwork and on a more personal level, friendship. After the end of this course, I am happy to have made more friends and was able to learn so much from these amazing people.

Working on various assignments with so many different people, the experience I gained has certainly improved my ability to work in teams. I learnt that a good team is so much more than just the sum of the individuals. Working in a team means allowing each member to utilise their strengths and fulfil their highest potential. It also means having each other’s back and picking up the slack so that others can have a well-deserved break. It is a well-used cliché, but it goes without saying that working in a team changes the focus from “me” to “us” and I have certainly learned a lot about that in this course.

Coming from a mechanical engineering course, the opportunity to hone my presentation and writing skills are sorely missing since most of my course works are heavily focused on, well engineering. Therefore, the various assignments like the peer teaching lessons, the mock interview sessions, the proposal project, and even this blogging assignment is certainly a breath of fresh air from the usual. I would also like to thank my teacher and fellow classmates for the positive and constructive feedbacks that I have received on my previous works as it has allowed me to identify my weaknesses and improved further.

Before I sign off, I would like to say a massive thank you to everyone in this class who have made my NUS exchange experience such a memorable one. I wish everyone all the best in their future endeavours and hopefully may this be the very beginning of a long and meaningful friendship. =)

Reflection on Team-based Research Project Proposal

Hi to everyone reading this! So today I will be reflecting on the research project proposal which has recently concluded.

 

First of all, I would like to thank all my groupmates for being such awesome team members! Everyone worked really hard on this project and it clearly shows in the report. I think we all clearly deserve a good pat on the back for job well done. =) It was a great experience to work with these bunch of people for the first time and we worked really well together as a team throughout the duration of the project. When we first started brainstorming on an issue to focus on, it was great to see that everyone had an opinion on what we should do. Every member of the team gave very constructive opinions on the suggestions and we were able to reach an agreement very quickly.

 

Besides that, it was great to know that we had mutual respect for one another. From an early stage of the project, we tried to understand the various commitments that each of us had and wokred out on the priorities of the project to avoid any future misunderstandings. I am positive that this is the right step to do and can certainly be applied to most, if not all, situations. Furthermore, we constantly updated one another on the progress of the project so that no one is left behind on the work progress. I believe that this is yet another important step which most certainly can be applied to most workplace situations.

 

Lastly, the project was a joint team effort as everyone played their part in ensuring that the project was a success. Every member of the team took the initiative to contribute to the project and was very much willing to go the extra mile to get things done. In every successful team, it is paramount that each member share similar goals and ideals. Since the focus of the team's proposal was on the issue of recycling in Singapore, it helps that all of us share similar ideals where we believe that we should be more socially responsible to our environment and encourage the practice of recycling. It was an exciting experience to work with people from different backgrounds and yet share similar ideals and viewpoints. Of course, this might not always be the case in the common workplace. For situations like these, I believe that it is up to the team leader or anyone from a position of leadership in the workplace to unite the team and get each member to work towards a shared goal.

 

I won't say that this was a perfect team but I believe that the team worked really well with one another and the entire journey with these awesome people has certainly been a memorable one for me. I hope it doesn't just end here and that perhaps sometime in the future, we'll get another chance to work with each other again. =)