Critical Reflection

 In the blink of an eye, we’re coming to the end of trimester 2. I remember setting 2 goals for myself at the start of the trimester; to overcome my fear of presenting to a large group of audience and to master the skill of writing a professional technical report. Looking back, I realised that Professor brad has given me many opportunities for me to practice speaking up. It was torturing for me to even stand in front of the class in the beginning. However, I was determined in making a change. After countless of practice, I was then brave enough to step out of my comfort zone to present. In addition to gaining confidence in presenting, I have also acquired a deeper understanding of the importance of non-verbal communication such as body language, eye contact, and visual aids. However, with these points in mind, I was still not able to perform up to my expectations. I realized that I speak in an informal way and start to fidget when I am nervous.  I believe that in order to not easily express my nervousness to the audience, much practice is still needed.

Writing a professional technical report was a challenge for me. I did not know what to expect from a professional technical report as I had never been taught to write a proper one back in my polytechnic days. But Professor Brad’s class gave me a real eye-opener of what an actual professional technical report is like. Through his step-by-step guidance, I was then only able to realize what the industry truly expects from us when writing a technical report. Although spending countless weeks doing the technical report was indeed tiring. My team and I had bonded so much throughout this module, this has surprisingly made writing a professional report a fun and enjoyable experience. In the near future, I myself would have to write a professional report too and I’m fortunate for having this learning experience with Professor Brad. To broaden my technical report writing skills and my vocabulary skills, I plan to expose myself to reading more variety of technical reports online during the holidays.

After close to 6 weeks of group projects with my teammates, I have learned that by having good effective communication within ourselves not only aids our group in the brainstorming of ideas but also completing the project tasks more efficiently. There were times where we had disagreements about each other’s ideas. The problem eventually grew big and there was some tension between us. Nonetheless, we handled the situation maturely. We took some time to meet up and shared our disagreements and sourced the internet online for more materials to support our points then cast votes. After that ordeal, I felt that we had grown stronger as a team. I learned that everyone has their own view or say in a team, and it is important for everyone to speak up. This is so that the team is able to resolve any doubts or issues right away. Another difficulty that we faced was that everyone was tied up due to studies and other project commitments. It was challenging for the team to find a proper time to meet up and discuss about it, it took us 1-2weeks to determine the problem statement for our project. As the leader of the group, I worked closely with Yanning, our group’s secretary to plan out an objective for every week’s meeting. This has effectively improved our team’s working efficiency.

All in all, I am very thankful to my teammates for making this project so fruitful and fun. To be honest, I think I would never have properly learned the correct way of speaking and writing if not for the help of Professor Brad. Thank You, Professor Brad.