Final reflection

I'm writing this blog post with mixed feelings. Half of me feels "good riddance!" while the other half of me feels sad that the fun has ended. What makes it worse is that it is my last semester of my academic life. How much more emotional can I get?

Before I start my reflection, I would like to share a recent interesting experience.

During one afternoon after I was done with my FYP and ES OP, I was lazing in one of the tutorial rooms in FOE when my phone rang. I picked it up and the conversation was vaguely as follows.

KBR (One of the companies that I dropped my resume with): Hello, is this Mr. Chua Kun Lin?

Me: Yes, that would be me.

KBR: I'm calling from KBR, do you have time to talk now?

Me: Yes.

KBR: Okay Kun Lin, you have 5mins to tell me about yourself and why we should shortlist you for the interview.

ME: (WHAT?!) Oh, okay. Now?!

KBR: Yes, now.

For my entire life, I have never heard of this shortlisting trick. Despite the practices I had in ES2007, I was caught totally off guard and my 5mins of "fame" was totally disastrous. You all are lucky enough to know me as a friend and hence are now in the know. I believe that this disaster can be easily averted if you had seen it coming, and hence will be more mentally prepared. For the unfortunate me, I don't think I would be receiving their notification email soon.

Back to my own reflections of this module.

There were two main reasons for me to take this module. 1) No exams 2) I did not want to feel disadvantaged as compared to my NTU counterparts (as their engineering undergraduates are forced to take a similar module). In addition to that, I have heard that this is one module that is easy to pass but hard to score. Of course, being a final year student, my aim is to have as much fun as possible before graduating for good, and from some peer reviews, this course seemed to be capable of providing the fun I need.

One element of this module that I loved would be the peer feedback/reviews in all our assignments. Having someone give feedback is good, but assessing someone's assignments in order to give them feedback is better. This module also provided us some practice in oral presentations and interviews (which was pretty crucial for me at this point in time.)

Another major takeaway from this module would be the friendships that we've established in this module. It has been great fun attending lessons with all of you, and I'll definitely cherish these times.

I would like to end this post by sharing another recent experience of mine - the 4hrs SMRT Management Trainee briefing session (yes it's the briefing that caused me to skip our last ES2007 class). While all of you were having your final reflections in the class, I was in the briefing session using the skills I have learnt in ES2007. Although the event was a "briefing session", it was in fact a "mass interview" session where my professional communication skills were constantly being assessed. First up was a 1min of fame where I had to do an oral presentation of myself to around 25 people. Next, we were split into teams of 10 and were given a situation to solve. On pretext, it was a test of logical capabilities, however, it was more of a test of our interpersonal skills while working in a team. In addition to that, during the briefing session, they kept stressing that they require people who are full of enthusiasm and good interpersonal skills. I felt especially grateful to Brad and his wonderful course at that point in time. Although I personally feel that I already have a tiny bit of interpersonal skills to begin with, I believe that many individuals have been enlightened and enriched further in this module.

So, to all my friends reading this post, never stop practising what you have learnt as they would definitely come in handy in the near future. In my humble opinion, this is one underrated module given the fact that communication skills are being highly sought after in the working environment (especially in management level).

My favorite lecturer once said, "Grades are not everything, think long term, nothing you do now is going to matter much." Thus, having the intention to S/U this module right from the start has made me less grade conscious and I have enjoyed this module to the fullest. I would like to thank Brad and all my dearest classmates for all the sharing and laughter that I received.

It is depressing that our weekly meetup has come to an end and that I'm typing the final paragraph of my final blog post of this final module of mine. So depressing that I have decided to plan a BBQ session for all of us (I hope all of you would be supportive of it!). Venue would be settled by Clement! So meanwhile, study hard and good luck for the exams!

The link to indicate availability of dates is given at

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AsNn_ktp1wypdEdFOUp3el9yWlVGRUFjenU4MzkteUE&hl=en

Do fill it up soon! Thanks!