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!!"
Thanks, Rami, for the post. I appreciate the fluent prose and overview of your experience. The analogy with painting is especially well put, especially in the sense that developing one's skills -- writing, speaking, presenting -- is never finished.
ReplyDeleteYour contributions this term in class and amongst your teammates were significant. You kept the discussions lively, and you provided a spark of insight on many topics. I'm sure your classmates would agree when I say that there aren't enough Lebanese-Canadian McGill students at NUS ...
All the best in your future endeavors!
Hi Rami,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the interesting times in the class ! You did provide a very unique perspective to the group and we were better for it.
Even though you and I were never part of any group together, I really was able to learn a lot from the ideas that you shared with the class.
I hope that you are enjoying your pre-exam vacation and see you around at NUS.
Thanks for your IPhone 4s, but there is no need to ship for me, because our country will open for sale in next month;
ReplyDeleteThanks for your public area in NUS, I hope one day it can be come true;I will remember the "abortion rate".
You are a good humor and open-minded, I quite enjoyed the discussion with you.
When you come to Beijing, feel free to contact with me.
Thanks ~
To Brad:
ReplyDeleteThank you brad for a great semester. I will surprise you by telling you that I met someone in NUS from McGill that is Lebanese-Canadian. And I had no idea who he was before I came to NUS.
To Ramanan:
I also learned a lot from you during your peer teaching and your presentation. Hopefully, our paths meet again :)
To Desmond:
Duly noted, enjoy your iPhone 4S. Send me a message through facebook with your new number in beijing so that I could contact you when I arrive :)