Subject: Self- Introduction

Dear Professor Blackstone,

My name is Hsiung Wei and I am a student in your effective communication class. I graduated from Temasek Polytechnic with a diploma in green building and sustainability in 2015, and applied to Singapore Institute of technology after my time in National Service and received an offer after going through an interview.
My interest in photography started when I was studying in Temasek Polytechnic. Back then, my lecturer would ask my friends and I to facilitate learning sessions where secondary school students came to learn about green technologies. One day, my lecturer asked whether I could help take photos for the sessions. I agreed to, and that’s how the passion started.
In terms of communication skills, my ability to interact with my superiors professionally has been nurtured over the years. During my internship in Polytechnic, my team and I were tasked to present our findings to the entire engineering division before we left the company. It was an extremely stressful moment as we were asked multiple questions about our findings during the presentation.
I feel my weakness in communication skills would probably be my inability to communicate effectively as in the working world, most people would prefer to hear summarized versions of information instead of long narratives. I personally feel that I have difficulty in summarizing my points as I often think that every point is important and that I should include all of them in my presentation.
My goal for this module is to learn to communicate efficiently and effectively, not just doing presentations but also in everyday communication and to learn to summarize my points better.
I believe in the coming months, I will be able to achieve my goal for this module and I look forward to learning more effective communication skills in class.

Best regards,
Hsiung Wei,
SIE 2017 Group1
Edited September 8
Edited September 10
Edited September 13

 I've read and commented on Casey, Amos, Shi Lei and Arthur's blog.



Comments

  1. Unknown8 September 2017 at 08:01

    Hi Hsiung Wei (Luke),

    It puts me at ease to know that there are others from a similar diploma course as me, such as yourself, in SIE. I, too, understand the difficulty you faced when required to give summarised versions of your findings to professionals in the field. One of my managers during my internship was very particular about time management, to which she just wanted to see the key elements of our proposal rather than going through the details.

    As far as language is concerned, your sentence structure is proficient. Though sometimes too long without a pause or break in between.

    -"I graduated from Temasek Polytechnic diploma in Green Building and Sustainability in 2015 and applied to..."
    >There can be a break when transitioning to when you applied to SIT. "I graduated from Temasek Polytechnic diploma in Green Building and Sustainability in 2015, and applied to..."
    -"It was an extremely stressful moment as during the presentation we were asked multiple questions about our findings and we have kept the presentation short as there was a time limit as well"
    >"It was an extremely stressful moment as during the presentation, we were asked multiple questions about our findings and we have kept the presentation short as there was a time limit as well"
    -4th paragraph have no breaks and a small error in "I have a difficult summarizing my points".

    Otherwise it is pretty concise. See you in school!

    Cheers,
    Casey Cheong

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. lukebeh26 September 2017 at 03:27

      Thanks Casey, I will take note of your recommendations.

      Delete
  2. Amos Wee9 September 2017 at 20:00

    Hello Luke,

    I am no expert in English and am just sharing my opinion. Please do correct me if i am wrong.

    I realised that you are using a lot of "and" to connect sentences together. Although this is grammatically correct, I feel you can try starting a new sentence every once in a while, it will make your sentences much smoother to read.

    Hope this helps,
    Amos

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. lukebeh26 September 2017 at 05:41

      Thanks Amos, I'll try and take note in the future.

      Delete
  3. Arthur Sam10 September 2017 at 10:12

    Hi Luke,

    In your second paragraph where you introduced your interest in photography as one of your hobbies, I found the part “One day, my lecturer asked whether I could help take photos. I agreed and that’s how I started.” to be a tad abrupt. Maybe a better way to have phrased it was to describe the spark in interest to be along the lines of your lecturer requesting your expertise in photography as part of the process in facilitating the learning sessions instead.

    As for your content, I found them to be very relatable. Especially the part when you mentioned how it can get easy to be too detailed when explaining a project to others. After all when we get involved with a project from scratch to end, there are so many things we want to share yet not all of it are the key points that others need to know.
    I hope my feedback can help you in some way. Good luck with attaining your personal goals throughout the course of this module.

    Warmest Regards,
    Arthur Sam

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. lukebeh26 September 2017 at 05:42

      Thanks Arthur for your comment. Will take note of your feedback.

      Delete
  4. Unknown12 September 2017 at 06:39

    Hi Hsiung Wei

    After reading your letter, I understand more about you such as photography and your points on communication. I have the passion in photography as well. Maybe next time, we can hang out for a photography trip together!

    Generally, I think that your letter is well written and your paragraphs are concise. You gave example for your strength which allow the readers to relate to you closely.

    However, there are some errors in your letter as well.

    1) The salutation - "Dear Professor Brad" can be changed to "Dear Professor Blackstone".

    2) The capitalisation of diploma- As what Prof Blackstone mentioned during Monday's tutorial, the capitalisation of diploma programme should be small instead of big cap.

    3) I feel that "Effectively and effectively" sounds weird in your conclusion. You might want to ponder about it.

    I hope that my feedbacks can help you and you can strive for the goals you set for this module!

    Cheers
    Poh Shi Lei

    ReplyDelete
  5. Brad Blackstone21 September 2017 at 00:42

    Dear Luke,

    Thank you for this formal letter and for the various edits you have done to date.

    In terms of this post, I appreciate how you paint a detailed picture of your background, including your passion for photography, and I applaud your honest reflection on your perceived communication strength and weakness. As you know by now, summarizing is a skill we'll be working on in SIE2016. We will also address the areas that you have mentioned as goals.

    Regarding your current skill levels, the info you present here is both fluently presented and well organized. My only suggestion would be for you use a topic sentence for the paragraph in which you discuss your photography. Otherwise, the transition to that topic from the previous paragraph's focus seems abrupt.

    I look forward to reading more of your writing this term.

    Cheers,

    Brad


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. lukebeh26 September 2017 at 09:08

      Thank you Professor Blackstone for your feedback. I will take note of it.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Critical Reflection about your learning in the course

In the last 13 weeks, effective communication has taught me to work with different groups of people. When I first stepped into the class two months ago, I thought that the first few people I was working with were going to be my group mates for the entire course. However, I was wrong as I was always asked to work with different members in the class and thus learn to adapt to the different dynamics in a group. Effective communication has also taught me to be careful with what I write in another proposal or emails. I learn how to write a proper official letter through many tutorial lessons and also an actual email was sent out to the Division Of Estate of Singapore Institute of technology. Working with different people after every small assignment has also taught me that I must work well with others. Many times, in the working world, we will not be able to choose our teammates to do a project. I feel that effective communication has in a way emulate this ‘working experience’ as we ar...
Read more

Technical Report - Purpose Statement Final

3. Purpose Statement This report proposes a “smart lighting” system to the Division of Estate SIT with the use of a sensor and a wireless technology. This report will describe the use of its proposed solution and explain how to constructively manage the electrical wastage problem of street lights. Additionally, the report aims to present an overview of a greener solution to street lighting.
Read more