Final Reflections on Learning

When I first heard of ES2007S from my senior, I was slightly reluctant as it requires me to speak up in class as well as having a lot of written work which I am not good at. Despite all this, I decided to take a leap of faith and bid for this module. 4 months later, and I'm glad I did because I honestly enjoyed my time in ES2007S. From self introducing in class, to project works as well as mock interviews, this module has prepared me with the skills of communicating professionally.

Being in statistics, I rarely had the opportunity of speaking up in tutorials and having group projects that require presentation or persuasive communication skills. This module gave me the chance of doing all that and at the same time, allowed me to work with many people. I learned to be more adaptive and more outspoken. Despite my outgoing attitude and friendly outlook, I am genuinely a shy person who would stutter a lot (like a turtle, though I doubt a turtle could even stutter hahaha). But this module has brought me out of my shell (no pun intended), and made me more confident when speaking up.

Interpersonal skills are very important especially when we start working and complete projects with all sorts of people. This module allowed me to work with different people on different projects for different objectives. I felt more open-minded and less rigid with my work ethics. I look forward to using more of my interpersonal skills for my future projects on different modules.

Mock interview also made me aware of my mistakes. I didn't realized how important attire and first impressions are for an interview and should I have known these set of skills learnt from our mock interview, I probably would have aced my interview 3 years back for an accountancy major in NTU. But then if I was in NTU, I wouldn't have learned all this! I believe everything happened for a reason and the history of a person defines him/her. This module has well-prepared me for any interviews in the future. Hopefully, I will use what I've learned to give me the head start I need.

I would like to thank everyone in the class for making this module an enjoyable one as well as my tutor Mdm Fazilah for your guidance and patience! A special shoutout to my first teammate Ian Loh for showing me how to be open to people. By observing how easily you mingle, I learned to do the same too. I look forward to seeing everyone in school or anywhere else and don't forget to say hi ((:

All the best for finals!

P.s. There are two popular kids in our class. So many people say hi to Jieyang when we were walking together and Baskar is our Co-op ambassador with 780 likes! Do add me on Facebook also ok. Just search for Haikal Filza. Thanks!

Reflections on Team-based Project

I would like to take this opportunity to thank my group mates Baskar, Jieyang, Michelle and Terence for working together towards this awesome project. Sorry if I made anything inconvenient for any of you! I was blessed with good teammates and learned a lot from them, from adhering to Jie yang's excellent leadership, the magical PowerPoint skills from the power couple, Michelle and Terence, to working closely with the Co-op ambassador Baskar who can garner 780 likes.

Allocation of work is most important for projects such as this. Due to our differing schedules, we were not able to meet so often but this setback was easily resolved since we knew what we had to do making compiling our work relatively easier. And this was made even more convenient with technology.

I remembered my group project that I had during Junior College which was similar to this one. We had to constantly meet to pass documents via thumb drive and hold meetings till late at night in school to update each other and re-assign tasks. But now, with the use of google drive and Whatsapp, it was easy to update each other and send photos of our progress. Discussion can be made at any time and documents can be compiled anywhere. I grew to appreciate how technology has helped us whenever I remembered how hectic my schedule was for my project during Junior College with the absence of technology.

My team members are very talented and my journey with them has been filled with enjoyable memories such as our funny and sweaty rehearsals in the seminar room, intellectual jokes on Whatsapp using statistics terms as well as ridiculously named documents!!! I feel really blessed being around these talented people and really look forward to working with them again in the future.

Go Team AlgaEnergy!

Evaluating Intercultural Behaviour

It is no surprise to meet people of different culture and ethnicity today. Globalization has brought the world closer and nowadays, either at work, school or even during a shopping retreat, we can meet all sorts of people from different places. Misunderstandings are bound to occur if we do not understand how to react or behave accordingly to different cultures.

A recent incident taught me to always learn about different culture to avoid any misunderstandings. Last semester, a Japanese girl, Haruno Sakura (not her real name) joined my sports. I had trouble remembering her name and of course, chose to remember the easiest part, her first name.

Everytime I spot her in school, I would try to be friendly and call out her first name. But most of the time, she didn't react to it and I find it rather peculiar. Finally during one of our group wassap conversation, I knew why.

Me: How about Haruno? Can you make it?

Sakura: Call me Sakura!!!

The rest of the junior team reprimanded me, and from then on, I know that calling Japanese by their first name is considered rude.

Different cultures have different practices, even in calling their names.  It is important that if you want to start interacting with cultures that you're unsure of, start with the simplest which is to ask them how to pronounce their name and how they prefer you to call them ((:

Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

Tuckman's stages of group development model consists of four stages. Firstly "forming" followed by "storming", "norming" and finally "performing". The storming phase is an inevitable process of any group's development and it is where team members face conflicts while working with each other, partly due to differences in ideas and perspectives. It is crucial how these conflicts are addressed as it will determine how well the team will work together in the future.

One such scenario that I can recall was working as a team for an academic project. At the start of the project, I was confident that our journey would be a smooth one as all of us were relatively good friends and were happy to be grouped together. After our first few meetings as project mates, however, things took an unexpected turn. Our project leader seemed to envision a different outcome for the assignment as compared to how the rest of the project members felt it should be. Furthermore, she made it clear that she dictates the direction of the project as she felt that her way was the best for the project.

As I worked on the project, I found that certain aspects of her direction were flawed because it clearly clashed with the project's requirements. When I raised the issue to our leader, she rejected my claims and was stubborn. I turned to my project members to verify the mistakes made in the project but they were keen to maintain peace with the project leader. Although they were aware that there were indeed some flaws in our project due to misguidance, they followed the leader’s instructions for the sake of ensuring their friendship.

It was plain that there was a collision of priorities and perspectives between the various parties and myself. I was eager to participate productively in the project and score well for one of my favourite modules hence I voiced out my concerns to my project leader despite her controlling personality. My project leader, on the other hand, was unreceptive to suggestions from her project mates because of her rather narrow mindset and lack of teamwork. My project members, instead of supporting me and helping to correct the errors in our project, prioritized their friendship with their group leader and avoided any confrontations with their friend.

When equipped with the necessary Emotional Quotient (EQ) skills, we can easily overcome any forms of interpersonal conflicts and avoid unnecessary hostilities. Think about ES2007S tutorial on building interpersonal communication. If you were me, an eager project member who wanted the best for the project, how you would resolve this interpersonal conflict and get your other project mates to support you as well when the odds are against your favour?