I started the module with two goals in mind – to be responsible and critical in my choices of words whether I am writing or presenting, and to be confident in my writing skills so that I can put across my messages easily and clearly. But today, at the end of this module, I gained more than what I aimed for, and I am grateful for that. I learnt to be cautious in what I write, to be critical in the language style and to have proper parallel structures. With the skills that I gained in Effective Communication, I unconsciously found myself being extra cautious with the choice of words that I use in my reports and presentation slides of other modules. I will ensure that I do not make errors in my sentence structure and that I paraphrase properly when citing information off any external sources. I also gained confidence in my writing skills so that the messages that I try to bring across is understood well. This is especially so when I had to write different reports for different modules and write-up the content while avoiding first-person pronouns. Avoiding first-person pronouns will give a better impression to the report as gives more formality. Other than that, I learnt that to put the message across easily in a presentation environment, it starts from having a good cover page for the presentation slides. This will allow the audience to get an idea of who I am, the date of the presentation and my focus on the issue that will be presented, making a good first impression of my presentation.
On top of that, I have also gained teamwork skills. Throughout my education experience, this is the first time that I encountered an issue of an uncooperative team member. It was tough and challenging to move forward with the project when there are parts of the project that need to be done are still left untouched. However, this issue untangled slowly when my team tried to resolve this issue by talking about it to each other. It has not been easy to be pushing and reminding a team member to keep doing her part. But as the saying goes, “A team is as strong as its weakest link,” I learnt that the only way to move forward is to support one another in the team and guide the member that needs help. Through this, it has improved the communication boundaries within the team, and it has taught me that communication within the team is indeed important as it helps to remove the conflicts and doubts between each other. This experience has also forged a new friendship for me as I am comfortable in working and studying with my team members apart from the scope of the project. Moving forward, I will be more understanding of the unknown situation that my team members are facing and talk things out when things are not within my control to get the work done well.
One area that could have been addressed better is the interpersonal skills to increase my competency to interact with my team members and to socialise better. It would have allowed me to know and understand the ways to communicate better with others and this can avoid any conflicts. In a nutshell, Effective Communication has allowed me to grow in terms of my confidence; being more confident in presenting my slides as well as writing reports with proper language and format.
Thank you, Professor Blackstone, for making my 13 weeks of Effective Communication a great one.
