Reflection on learning

ES2007s has indeed been an enriching and interesting module.

The one thing I like about this module is that it teaches “soft skills” that are usually not taught in the normal content based module. It teaches you how to excel and project yourself as a self-confident individual. In the working world, this is extremely important, as this is the factor that will differ you from any other typical worker. Another plus point will be the fact that it somehow teaches you on how to get a job through job interview, resume and cover letter writing and how to excel in your job through oral presentation and peer teaching.

One thing that I would like to share is my experience working with a group of international students. It is my first time working with no locals and the experience has been rather different. There were many different perspectives and viewpoints that were brought up throughout our discussion. I realized that international students have a very clear idea of what they want to be presented and often will show a different perspective at looking at an issue. This in contrast to the local groups I have worked with whereby the viewpoints that we tend to present are often quite typical and standard. Also, the stereotypes that were formed that international students will not carry out their projects properly, as they only needed a Pass grade, is untrue. They were very cooperative and most of the time, they offered to coordinate project group meetings. Although the difference in opinions hamper the progress of project at times, they have indeed open my mind out to their way of thinking and exposed me to the kind of cultures they have undergone. Such experiences have indeed benefitted me and through the interaction I had with them, it has allowed me to understand more about the different cultures and behaviors they have at their home country.

Oral Presentation

We noticed the trend of local and foreign students bonding mainly with their friends who come from similar background. Hence, my group came up with the proposal of creating increased opportunities to facilitate the interaction between these two groups of students. We hope that through these occasions, local and foreign students are able to communicate and get along more comfortably with each other instead of minimizing their interaction for fear of awkwardness or differences in cultures.

My group then spent several weeks to come up with the proposal and also preparations for the oral presentation. However, even though we were clear of our aim of our proposal, we were not able to decide on a specific program to carry out our plan. There were many disagreements and confusions throughout our project discussion. One reason for those was due to our culturally different backgrounds as all of us are of different nationalities and thus, we have very different perspectives about the feasibility of the different ideas each of us came up to carry out the plan. Due to these differences of opinions, we wasted much time and finally settled on a program, which we named it ‘SEP Engage’.

The whole idea of SEP Engage was meant to increase the interaction between the local and international students and the steps, if it could be implemented, warrant a high success rate. However, due to the lack of sufficient preparations done for the oral presentation, we were not able to effectively convey our proposal to the class. I found it a pity, as if my group had taken more time and effort in preparing the presentation and not on settling the various issues that came up during our group discussion, we would be better able to convey and receive better responses from the class to help us evaluate and improve our plan.