Critical Reflection

Module learning:

At the start of this module, my goal was to be able to communicate and converse fluently with my peers, without having the need to be too mindful and cautious of my words. In short, I want to be as natural as possible when it comes to speaking, not having to make any grammar and tense errors during conversations. Glad to say, I am able to fulfill and achieve my goal at the end of this module. The module has greatly helped me in terms of building my communication and critical thinking skills. For instance, group discussions and mock presentations have definitely geared me up and allowed me to work on my communication skills. 

Not forgetting that I have an awesome Professor, Brad. Under his guidance, I am able to develop my confidence in a comfortable environment that he has set for everyone, to freely make mistakes and to voice out our views openly. This has further helped me to also relay my thought processes effectively to my peers and I believe it is a skill that I have adopted from the critical thinking skill lectures that Prof Brad has gone through with us. My additional takeaways from those critical thinking classes, was to be clear and concise when it comes to relaying an idea and to use rational inductive and deductive reasoning to assess a situation. 

Furthermore, my biggest worry at the start of this module was that I may not make any friends due to my poor conversation skills but I was wrong. To my surprise, I am able to converse with everyone in class and have made even more new friends by the end of this module. Moving forward, to further improve my communication skills, I will look back at the materials that Prof Brad has gone through with us during lessons, to not lose these precious communication skill sets that I have learned and developed in this semester as it will definitely be useful.

Project learning:

During the research project phase of this module, the most memorable moments for me was the final presentation and writing of the technical report. My team’s research topic is to bring about mycelium as a new material in the building industry and to align with Singapore’s sustainability efforts. For me, I personally enjoyed myself during the presentation as it allowed me to understand my body language and to be at the moment to feel the thrill and excitement of presenting my team’s research topic to my fellow peers. 

Prior to the final presentation, we had a mock presentation and honestly, I came to class unprepared and clueless. However, I remembered what was taught during class regarding presentation skills and the main takeaway for me was how I can engage my audience through non-verbal cues. Just relying on body language to keep the presentation lively, I went with that in mind, to just rely on my body language and to deliver. I tried it during the mock presentation and though the response was not overwhelming, there was some fine tuning to be done. Finally, during the final presentation, I felt that I was confident and natural, totally killing the presentation. What was memorable for me after that was when Prof Brad took us out of class to give us feedback. He said that I had the body language of a TEDTalk speaker, super comfortable and confident. Almost somewhat similar to the late Steve Jobs, world’s renowned inventor. I was flattered.

Moving on, the technical report has taught me to appreciate my team and the efforts they have portrayed. They are really hard working individuals and I have to give credits to Farzana, our project leader. I would like to thank her for keeping the group on track and it was not easy for her to manage 3 guys with very different working styles. Thank you. I am really glad to have worked with such a great team and I would not want to trade them for the world. I felt that all of us had our differences but we were able to communicate effectively and honestly. Moreover, we even make up for each others’ shortcomings and flaws, while empowering each other with our own strong traits and learning from each others’ mistakes. This is what I truly appreciate, the camaraderie forged here in this module.

To conclude, this module has taught me alot and has helped me with my communication skills, confidence, critical thinking skills and to improve my technical report writing skills. Lastly, I would like to give my biggest thanks to Prof Brad, for giving us such a warm and comfortable environment for everybody to learn and to make mistakes. To grow at our own pace and to recognise our strengths when it comes to communication. He has definitely taught me the essence and importance of communication, which will come in handy for me in the near future. Thank you so much Professor Brad!