The Final Post: A Reflection on Professional Communication

    I took professional communication, ES2007S, to be able to match it with a similar course in McGill. I was expecting the lectures to be similar to normal classes: boring, long and demanding. But my expectations were wrong. Although this class was sometimes demanding, it was not boring nor long. Every lecture I have attended was a fun lecture where everybody interacts together to learn, to help, to teach and to socialize. 

    I quickly realized, in the beginning of this class, that public speaking is a skill I needed to practise. In addition, while writing the first blog post, I did not know about my writing capabilities. With time and practise, I feel that I improved in comparison with my capabilities in the beginning of this course. 

    In a nutshell, blog posts where fun and creative, peer teaching made me learn about inter-cultural communication, proposal was a great way to to build up team working skills and finally the presentations (Peer teaching and Proposal presentation) were a great platform to improve public speaking skills. 

    While I feel that I greatly improved many of the skills listed above, I still need to keep on practising for better results. An interesting comparison would be with a painting, it takes years to perfect it and you paint and you repaint over the imperfections of your painting. For example, the Mona Lisa painting was not finished in one session. It took Leonardo Da Vinci 16 years to perfect it and make it a piece of art. The same goes for communication skills, you learn the basics in class and you improve with practise, time and perseverance.

    I would like to thank Brad for a great course in which I learned a lot. and I would like to thank my team mates: Megha (proposal and peer teaching), Ramandeep (Proposal) and Tong (Peer Teaching). Finally, I would like to thank everybody else that is in this class for a great learning experience. And for those who will be staying in Singapore, I will repeat what I proposed in our last day of class "Let us have a reunion next year!!" 

Reflections On RMR Social Zone Presentation

        One of my biggest weaknesses is to perform a presentation in front of a crowd. I would stress out a lot during the presentation even if I was well prepared and knew my material perfectly. As a result, this caused me to forget some important details. To avoid such an event, a handy piece of paper with important facts of my presentation would be in my possession. 

        To control my stress, I would enter in a state of mind where I am seeing the presentation in front of me without losing touch of the fact that I am presenting in front of a crowd. This would remind me of each step I have to take for the presentation to make it as clear as possible and not forget any important detail. 

        But I have to be honest, that does not always work... I still forget some facts due to the stress, and the piece of paper in my hand would be a source of more stress than relief from it.

        What was special about this presentation is the fact that we had a cohesive group where members helped each other when needed. Moreover, while our main purpose was to achieve this proposal, this did not stop us from socializing and having fun (which is in line with our presentation ;) We want students at NUS to socialize and have fun while keeping up the hard work).

        What I learnt about this project is that nothing can be done without dedicated hard work. You should learn about the context of your proposal, the people you are proposing/presenting to, show that the advantages of your proposal, counter the disadvantages that might be encountered and prove the importance of your proposal by believing in it.

English in Bali, Indonesia

Kuta, the touristic district of Bali, is known for its overcrowded streets. Day and night, these streets are filled with cars, motorbikes and taxis trying to pick you up and drop you off anywhere in Bali for an overpriced ride. Shops fill those streets with merchants parading their products on the tiny sidewalks. Each time someone passes by, merchants point at one of their random products and say "This!" or "Ok!" to attract the attention of the potential buyer. Those English words that merchants barely understand are used to confuse a tourist and get him to buy a product he does not necessarily need or want.

During recess week, my friends and I decided to go and visit Kuta. It has very beautiful and clean beaches, many shops to browse and restaurants that serve delicious food. My friends and I assumed that speaking a different language than the local population would be a barrier for understanding the Balinese culture and society. Fortunately, many locals spoke English. 

What was hard to notice at the beginning of our trip is that the English that we used seemed complicated to the locals. We had to repeat every sentence many times until it was understood. Thus, if we asked “Can I have some rice please?”, a local would hardly understand the question. The local would take each word in this question, literally translate it into Balinese and then combine the words in his mother tongue using the same word combination in English. As a result, he would not understand what we said because the question made no sense to him.

After many trials, we finally understood that it was easier for the locals to understand us if we stopped using long sentences and replaced them by one or two word phrases while taking a break between words. For instance, the question asked above would get transformed into “My friend … I want… One rice… Ok?” (It also becomes easier to communicate if we used a deep accent in English). In other words, when we started using ‘broken English’ to talk with a native from Bali, it was easier communicate with him.

Having a common language helps in avoiding intercultural miscommunication but one has to take into consideration the culture and the society in which this language is used, because the words might have the same meaning but how you use them differs from one culture/society to another.

Cover Letter in General

Montreal, March 12, 2011

Att.: Mr. Xyz

Company Name

(Title of the person, if available)

Dear Mr. Xyz,

I have the pleasure to enclose herewith my CV for a candidature to the internship posting # 0123 (Supply Chain Management), which was advertised at McGill Career Planning Services.

In May, I will complete my second year in McGill majoring in mechanical engineering. The aerospace field has been my passion for a long time. My previous internships accomplished at renowned banking & retail organizations helped me develop strong time management and organizational skills required in an office. Furthermore, my internship in a regionally recognized mechanic workshop helped me understand and acquire the foundations of physical work.

Not only have I been introduced to the internal working systems/procedures and daily tasks within a dynamic environment, but I also have been acquainted with team working principles and key success factors.

Accordingly, I truly reiterate my interest in an internship opportunity at ‘Company Name’, and would be delighted to discuss it further at your convenience.

I would like to thank you, Mr. Xyz, for your kind consideration,

Sincerely,

Jonathan H. Edwards

Montreal, Qc

+1 (555) 555-1234

email@donottrythis.later

This an application letter that I recently submitted. The name of the company/person to whom this letter was written to has been omitted. The post concerned is a 'Supply Chain Manager' in an aeronautics company.


This company is a multinational company that has both offices and factories in Montreal. This is why I talk about my work at offices and at a mechanic workshop. In the case where I do not get the job as a supply chain manager, I show them that I have office experience. This would hopefully not make the HR representative reviewing my application throw my CV away seeing the possibility that I could fit in somewhere else in the company.

Interpersonal Communication Conflicts

It is a beautiful day; the sun is at its zenith while a distant rainbow is clearly visible in the sky. The landscape is filled with trees and flowers. A beautiful church can be distinguished because of its high bell tower. Next to that church, there is a playground where children are running around, playing hide and seek. Their mothers are chatting between each other, discussing their daily lives while keeping a watchful eye over their children. It is a perfect day and everybody is enjoying it. 

Suddenly, the sounds of birds are silenced by a shrieking scream. Everybody is confused and surprised. Kids stop running and mothers instinctively rush towards their children. A man can be seen pointing at the top of the tower bell, he is shouting "She is on top! She is going to jump!". Each person turns his attention to the unknown young girl standing on the edge of the tower, waiting to fall. 

She is blankly staring at the sky and ignoring the world under her feet. Her makeup is damaged because of dry tears. Her stunning black dress is stained with mud and dirt. She has been on top of the church all morning and just decided to climb the bell tower, which attracted the attention of the crowd. Sadness is filling her soul, blinding her of the environment around her. Unlike everybody else, she could not see the shining sun and the bright blue sky; somehow, this image is replaced by darkness. She is standing still, as if she were a statue. The only sign of life she projected is a cry in a deep sad voice "Why?...".

Her thoughts are surrounding her tightly. It makes her disconnected from her surroundings to the point that the notion of space and time are lost. She is lonely and confused; convinced that the future will not bring any good. She is lost within her mind, questioning the root of her problems; is it because she is a failure or because she is misunderstood? The only thing she is sure of is that she must make a hard decision: should she jump to end her misery or give herself another chance in life?  

Suddenly, before reaching her decision, her foot slips from the edge of the bell tower. She looks around and gets back in touch with the world around her. The rainbow has disappeared; the melody of singing birds was replaced by the sound of sirens and chatting noises by loud screams. People are begging her, they are asking her, "Please, do not jump, we are here to help." But, it is too late.

What are the different interpersonal conflicts in this post? (Hint there are two)

Is there any way that the flow of events could have happened differently?

Importance of Communication

We should always ask ourselves questions on why we are doing certain things/actions in life. 

We should determine their true purpose and decide whether it is important or not to accomplish them.

So now we ought to ask ourselves this question: why is developing communication skills important for us?

It is as simple as it looks; we live in a world that relies on communication. From telling our parents that we are hungry during childhood to performing a live speech in front of millions of people, we need those skills to effectively deliver the message. In every situation, we (as creators of the message) are supposed to find a way to get the message through to the audience. This requires communication skills.

Every person we are talking to is the audience. Since each person is different, it requires us to find a different way to interact with him/her. If I were to organize a trip with my friend, there should always be a mean of communication between us. It does not need to be formal, but it needs to be clear because we (my friend and I) do not want to end up separated in different countries. If I were to talk with my superior (Manager, boss, CEO, Prof, etc ...), using any communication channel (e-mail, phone, face to face interaction), it is important to be formal. Thus, to determine how to deliver a message, we need communication skills.

It becomes harder when the audience is unknown to us (when sending our resumes to a recruiter). It is also difficult to adapt in different situations and contexts. Finally, if our audience includes more than one person, how can we arrange to get the message through without having to separate each person and persuade each one of them in a different manner? 

To get behind this podium, we need communication skills.

Good communication skills will turn every obstacle that society throws at us into a mere insignificant and unnoticeable setback. It makes it easier for us to achieve our goals through efficient and strong communication. This is why we need good communication skills.