When ES2007S comes to an end...

Well, week 13 is here and ES2007S class has officially ended. The past 12 weeks has been a wonderful learning experience for me. I would never have expected myself to do a module like this as I wasn’t an outspoken person to begin with. I could still remember on the first day of the class when Dr. Radhika asked us the reason for taking this module. My reply to her was that it could fit my timetable and I came with an open mind to learn about things taught in this module. So now, let me share my experience in this module as well as what I have gained after these 12 weeks of lessons.

The most difficult part for me in this module was definitely doing oral presentations for peer teaching as well as for the group project. Doing an oral presentation was something that was rather tough for me. After finishing ‘A’ levels, oral presentation was something that was left untouched for quite a few years. When I was in army, I did not have to stand in front of a bunch of trainees to brief them as my job was to facilitate their training as a senior operator. Most of the time, I would be helping the specialists in the background. After getting so used to doing so much of background work, doing an oral presentation in front of a group of people felt really weird as all eyes would be on me for that few minutes. Through these 12 weeks of lessons, I feel that I have learnt quite a lot from Dr. Radhika as well as my fellow classmates on oral presentation skills. I’ll definitely keep three things in mind in the future when I am required to do an oral presentation: preparation, delivery and audience, and what to consider for each of these points. I felt that I have improved on my oral presentation skills after going through this module, even though I know I definitely have lots of room for improvements. 

Another thing that I have learnt to do better after taking this module would be managing my time better.  As the workload for my course of study was relatively heavy, I had to make use of time wisely so that I would be able to complete my work on time. It was not easy but I managed to do it. I also have to thank my group members as they were really accommodating when it comes to work. At times that I could not finish my part on time due to work from other modules, they would tell me to go ahead with my work and would help me wherever necessary. I did the same when they were more occupied with their work and when I have completed mine. After taking this module, I think I am more capable of managing time well and will definitely be helpful for me in the future. 

Coming to the practical aspect of this module, it was definitely useful to learn about application letter and resume writing which would be helpful for job application in the future. After l have learnt more about the application letter and resume writing, I realized that the previous resumes that I have sent out for a part-time job application was really lacking in many aspects. Neither did I know that there was a need for an application letter as what I did previously when I was looking for a part-time job was just to write a short paragraph on the interest I have for the job in the email. As we had an assignment on application letter writing, I took it as an opportunity to craft my resume for the future usage. I think this really helped as I was actually killing two birds with one stone in the process.

The mock job interview was also useful as I was asked some questions that were unexpected. For example, my interviewer asked me whether I am okay if they relocate me to work in other countries. To be frank, I have never thought about this and this is definitely possible, given that globalization has led many companies open their branches in other countries. The difficult questions that were taught in the interview lesson also gave me an idea of what kind of questions to expect during interviews and I am now more mentally prepared for these questions if asked in an interview. 

Overall, I really enjoyed this module as it was a great learning experience for me. It is a useful module for all students and applicable not only to the working world, but also to our daily lives. I would definitely recommend it to my friends in NUS. I would like to thank Dr. Radhika for being such a wonderful tutor as well as my lively classmates for bringing joy to the class. All the best for your future endeavours and see you guys in school! 

Reflection on Team-based Research Project Proposal

Working as a group has never been something that I liked after I finished Project Work at ‘A’ Levels. It was, in my view, tedious and troublesome. Problems such as uneven distribution of workload, interpersonal conflict, difference in ideology might surface during the course of the group work. Group mates might just turn into enemies if the group work experience wasn't as pleasant. After this group project, my impression of group work changed quite a bit.

It all started out from about seven weeks ago when we were divided into our groups based on the “lucky draw”. After the “lucky draw”, we sat down in our groups to decide on the topic. Prab came up with a few ideas he had in mind and we agreed on the topic of stray animals and animal abuse cases. I must admit that even though I know of the animal abuse and stray animals cases, I did not really have much knowledge about them initially.  On the contrary, Ee Peng and Prab knew quite a bit about the non-profit organizations involved in helping the stray animals as well as the current trends. It was definitely quite difficult for me at the start as I had to do quite a bit of research in order to know what was really going on. After I did the research on this topic, I understood why we needed something in place to help the stray animals, as well as those that were abused and abandoned. With this common goal we had in mind, we worked together to come up with a proposal to help the animals. 

During the process of doing this project, we realised we had a bit of problem with the definition of animals in our problem statement. We had to look into it a few times as the definition would determine how large our scope of work would be. At first, we were too specific such that our scope only covered the stray animals. After some discussion, we realised that it was too specific as defining it this way would leave out those animals that were under abuse and being abandoned. Also, we were only thinking of including only a few types of animals, mainly cats and dogs. This was also too specific as other animals such as hamsters and rabbits were not included. How can we not include them when they are part of the domestic animals that people own? We were quite lucky that we realised this issue in the early phase of the project. If there’s something that we could have done better for this project, I feel that it would be defining the scope more clearly and carefully so that we have a better idea of the direction that we were heading towards for this project. Also, it would have saved us quite a bit of time if we had thought about it more carefully. 

Throughout this project, the workload was quite evenly distributed among the three of us. We set deadlines for the parts we need to cover each week. Having deadlines is something that helps keep us on task. With the deadline that we need to meet, we were able to complete our work on time even though there were other assignments that we needed to complete for other modules.  We would also help each other to check our work which I thought was rather useful for a group project. At times we might have overlooked certain points and if any of us thought of points that were applicable, we would add it in and tell our team mates later on. This helped us make sure that we do not miss out on points that were important and applicable to the project.

I am also quite thankful that we were accommodating to one another. As the three of us are in our third year of study, the workload for our individual course is rather heavy. At times, we might get caught up with work from other modules and thus, we make it a point to help each other out whenever necessary. It was also tough for us to meet up to discuss about the project and the related issues as we do not have a common break time or free time. We could only meet up on Facebook or Google Docs on weekends to discuss on our project but we make sure that we make the best use out of the meeting time. 

However, I feel that people at workplace might not be as accommodating as compared to my group mates, thus it might not be a realistic reflection of workplace. We were accommodating to one another because we understood each other’s situation quite well. Comparing this to a workplace where people might not be able to understand what you are going through, they might judge you for your ineffectiveness. People might think that you are inefficient and would doubt your working capabilities when you can’t meet the deadlines or complete the allocated work. On top of that, I doubt there will be an even distribution of project workload at workplace. Most people would have the “If given a chance to do less, who would want to do more?” mentality and I think it would make things really tough for those who are really committed to the project. I have heard stories from friends who have entered the working world and he told me that he was already immune to people who shirk responsibility during projects. He just had to do more than what he should. I can totally sympathise with him as I personally experienced this before at my previous workplace. Hence, I feel that these two factors are not really reflective of the situations at workplace.

On the other hand, there were definitely useful takeaways from this project which I felt was applicable for workplace as well. Things like setting deadlines for yourself would definitely be beneficial so that you can complete your work on time, giving your colleagues a good impression of you because of your timely submission of allocated work. In addition, at times you might be asked to work on things that you are not familiar with. In order to match up to the amount of knowledge your colleagues has on that topic, it will be good for you to do some research on the topic you are working on so that you will be more well prepared and will be able to give more insightful suggestions on the topic. 

From this group project, I have learnt quite a lot and was definitely a good learning experience. I am very thankful for having wonderful team mates that made the whole group work process a memorable and enjoyable one. Thank you so much Stray-viours! 

Evaluating Intercultural Behaviour

A few months ago, Daniel, a friend of mine went to Taiwan with his brother, Ethan for a holiday trip. We met up after his trip as he wanted to pass me some souvenirs he bought from Taiwan. I was rather curious about his holiday in Taiwan so I asked him how it went. He was really eager to share his experience with me as that was his first time going to Taiwan. When he was sharing his overseas trip story with me, I had a very deep impression on the cultural differences we have in the way people deal in rubbish in Singapore and Taiwan.

He had a Taiwanese friend, Wei Lian, that he knew in his course of study in university and they were still in contact even though he returned to Taiwan after obtaining his degree in Singapore. In order to cut cost on the accommodation, he approached Wei Lian and asked if he could stay at his house for the whole of the trip. Wei Lian agreed readily and volunteered to be their tour guide for the duration of their trip. On the first night, Wei Lian brought Daniel and Ethan to one of the most famous night market, Shilin Night Market, to have a taste of the good food in the night market. 

He described the food so vividly that made me feel hungry throughout the duration of our conversation. After finishing his food, Daniel wanted to find a rubbish bin to discard the waste. While he was trying to look for a rubbish bin, Wei Lian noticed and asked him if he was looking for a rubbish bin. He nodded and Wei Lian told him that there is almost no garbage bins found in the public. Daniel and Ethan were quite puzzled. In Singapore, rubbish bins are found along the streets so that people can discard their rubbish conveniently. Wei Lian told him that Taiwanese has the habit of collecting their rubbish and throwing them at home. It was part of their culture to do so as they would want to keep their streets clean. Daniel thought it was quite weird of them to do so as it was really quite a hassle to carry your rubbish wherever they went. Although he felt weird, he knew that he was in Taiwan and should respect their culture. Thus, he hang on to his bag of rubbish until they were back at Wei Lian’s house. 

During the stay at Wei Lian’s house, Daniel observed that Wei Lian’s family has the habit of sorting out their rubbish into different types.  He found it rather interesting because in Singapore, it is rare for people to do waste sorting. But at the same time, he did not understand why they need to go through so much effort to sort out the rubbish. Not realizing that he was a little insensitive, he asked Wei Lian,

“Why do Taiwanese waste so much effort and time to do rubbish sorting?”

Wei Lian knew where he was coming from and so he was not really offended by Daniel's words. Instead, he showed him this poster below.

(source: http://www.matsu.idv.tw)

Wei Lian told him about the history of waste sorting in Taiwan and why they did so. In 1996, the Taiwan government implemented the "rubbish free" policy and this was also the reason why Daniel couldn't find rubbish bins in the night market. 

In Taiwan, they classified their waste into three types: recyclable waste, food waste and general waste. (To the non-chinese friends/readers, this is what is written in the poster seen above.) Recyclable waste refers to things like paper, used batteries, cans, plastic bottles and glass. General waste refers to those that are non-recyclable, for example, used tissue papers. They also have a food waste category which was something not heard of in Singapore. On top of that, they have specific garbage trucks to collect the different types of waste. The collective effort of all Taiwanese definitely did not go to waste. Their waste collection rate of 35.4% was even higher than that of UK (27%) and USA (32.5%) in 2006 which was remarkable. 

Daniel was really impressed by the amount of effort Taiwanese put in to sort out their rubbish. However, he felt embarrassed because of his insensitivity when asking Wei Lian the question. Wei Lian told him it’s all right as he did not take it to heart.  To make up for what he did wrong, he gave Wei Lian a treat before he came back to Singapore. He also promised Wei Lian that when he comes to Singapore for a short holiday, he will tell him more about the cultures Singaporeans practised.

From the conversation with Daniel, I gained knowledge of the recycling and waste sorting culture in Taiwan. It is also important to respect the culture practiced by people in other countries as it is their culture that makes them unique in their own ways. I am considering going on a holiday to Taiwan during the next semester break.  I shall do more research on their culture before heading there! 

Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

All of us would definitely, in one way or another, have an interpersonal conflict with someone that we know. The result of the conflicts could either be good or bad, depending on how the parties handled them. This incident described was one of the incidents which I encountered during army.

When I was in my unit in army, we were asked to train this bunch of trainees. However, their treatment was very different from what I experience during my Unit Induction Programme (also known as UIP). Maybe I’ll elaborate a bit more on our UIP. It was a very tough period of time (usually two months or so) and we were drilled so hard so that we can meet the time limit given for our deployment. Our punishments were rather harsh but all of us have to go through it so that we would be operationally ready for our deployments.

So this bunch of trainees came in around Feb 2010, around four months after our batch turned operationally ready for our deployments. Due to the fact that they were of a lower PES status, their training was not as tough as compared to ours. But this was not the part which I was unhappy about. The thing was that this batch of trainees was generally lazy and does not take much initiative when doing work. It was also a difficult task teaching them the theoretical knowledge of the equipment used as they were generally inattentive. As we were staying in the same bunk as them, we also had the chance to know their personalities that till today I still have bad impressions of. 

Things started to get worse as their training were not done properly, as the third sergeants involved were too close to them. They would not punish them like they would do to us in the past because of that and also because of their physical capabilities. Being someone who went through harsh punishments and treatments, A and I thought that the sergeants were not doing things the right way. (For your information, I’m only a Lance Corporal back then. I’ve got no say over anything that involves training.)We started complaining to one of the sergeants on Facebook openly (people, remember not to do this) and it even involved the sergeant B whom I was rather close with. We complained about the training, we complained about the sergeants and also the trainees.

Things got out of hand when our platoon sergeant knew of our complaints on Facebook. (See, I told you all not to.) Even though he did not mention names when he scolded the whole platoon regarding this issue, A and I knew that he was talking about us. All of us were asked to remove any related things on Facebook and was asked not to do so anymore. If anything like this was to happen, we would be issued extras. (Extras are punishments in the form of guard duties for us). My platoon commander even asked the two of us out to talk things out as well as to offer him suggestions on what can be done.

I was rather angry as I knew someone tipped us off. Our platoon sergeant had no access to A and my facebook profiles. The first person who came to my mind was the sergeant B as he was on good terms with our platoon sergeant.  I did not approach him as I was really angry at that point of time. And I guess it was inevitable for our friendship to strain after such incident happened. I could remember very clearly that the last sentence sergeant B told me after our platoon sergeant gave us a dressing down. 

“If there’s anything you are unhappy about, you could have just told me. And by the way, I’m not the one who told him about that. ”

After that incident, we did not talk to each other anymore. Every time I look back at this incident, there would always be a sense of regret as something could have been done to salvage our friendship. But anger got into me so badly back then which cost me a friendship that was hard to come by. If there was a chance for me to do things all over again, I would have chosen to handle things in a matured manner. I would have approach him personally and sort out the related issues among us. If you were in my shoes, would you have reacted differently to things that have happened?