Reflections on ES2007S : The journey

It's hard to believe that ES2007s has finally come to an end. It was by far the most enjoyable module I've taken in NUS. I used to look forward to Tuesdays and Fridays and the engaging nature of the module made the other drab modules I have bearable. I was quite sad the day of the last class but I'm glad we will have a batch outing sometime during reading week. As far as the module is covered, I decided to break it down:

Valuable lessons learnt:

1) How to influence my non - verbals to project confidence and skill
2) Writing great CVs and cover letters
3) Preparing for and performing at job interviews
4) Drafting research proposals with a certain degree of formalism
5) Critical reading
6) Making things engaging yet structured ( my tendency to ramble has reduced)
7) Using Haiku ( something I learnt in the process)
8) YOU are the presentation, not your slides

Here are some some lessons I learnt indirectly:

1) Enjoy cultural differences, its the only way you will grow. Live & Learn
2) Friends are found in the unlikeliest of places
3) Wanderlust is the greatest desire, travel and visit the places you talk about
4) If you get to know a person well enough, he/she WILL impress you

I feel Brad did a wonderful job of both teaching and facilitating learning. Not all learning comes from your professor but your peers and this showed in our classes. He fostered a very good level of interaction and exchange between us and this made the classes even more enjoyable and unforgettable. His diverse experiences in life and his blog added to the appeal ES2007S had to me.

I lauded Shi Ying for sharing so openly in her second blog post, and today I'm going to do the same.
I haven't told too many people, but I went through a bit of a personal crisis this semester JUST before my peer teaching, my long time girlfriend back in India ended things with me.It had a really bad effect on me, I started skipping all my classes. I was scared about whether I could present for my peer teaching as I was fighting back tears just before I had to present. I'm glad it went well, meeting all of you and the workload distracted me and made me realize, life goes on. It was as if everything was perfectly positioned to help me through this time.

I don't feel like ending this blog post as its the last thing we have left to do in this module, but I have to. All good things do come to an end.  I wish all my peers the very best !  Don't ever be daunted or intimidated by anything, you are ALL amazing people in your own unique way. I'm ending with one of my favourite songs, high hopes by Pink Floyd. All the best for your future!

Reflections on Oral Presentation

I have always enjoyed presenting in front of an audience, regardless of the topic. The topic we chose for our oral presentation was something close to my heart – Wi-Fi connectivity. I saw it as an opportunity to combine my love for technology with my love for presenting. We finished our proposal and slides in good time. I was slightly nervous the day of the oral presentation because the other oral presentations had been of a very high standard. In effect, the bar had been raised.  Before the presentation, we were slightly apprehensive about the fact that we had not been able to successfully conduct an interview but nevertheless we substantiated our claims using empirical data such as an online speed test conducted in PGPR and YIH. 

 I thought Bernard presented very well and set the tone for the presentation effectively. Ding Ding’s part was not very content rich but more of comparisons of his experiences back home and his experiences in NUS. My part was largely technical and contained a lot of technical jargon such as routers, extenders, hot-spots and so on.  I really wanted to make it as interesting as possible but even I felt that it became slightly like a lecture.

The Q&A session that ensued went off fairly well, I was equipped to answer all technical questions and vacillations. The reception of our class was largely mixed. Many found it slightly abstruse and technical. The solutions did not seem to flow into direct results. Our presentation was aimed at the Computer Centre and our use of technical information was to substantiate our claims and show the feasibility of our solutions. In the view of a technical presentation , I was very satisfied.  I just wish that we were able to reach out to the audience more in terms of content and convince them a little better. However, seeing as it was aimed towards Computer Centre, I feel better about it. 

Overall, I've enjoyed every bit of this module, the peer teaching, the proposal formulation, the oral presentation and all the blogging. This is not my last post, I really want my last post to do justice to this module so I'm going to pace it out and write it when I'm in the mood for some retrospection. Thank you guys for all your useful comments, faithful readership and all the friendships I made. Keep reading for the last post!