In the blink of an eye, 13 weeks have passed. I have learnt many practical lessons from this course, and the area that I feel that I have benefitted the most from will definitely be that of resume/cover letter writing.
As a final year undergrad, I'm the most interested in this area because I will need to find a job soon, and these skills have proven to be very useful. Even those who are not in their final year yet would find it useful to clinch their dream internship! In this course, our resume and cover letter have been read and edited by both our peers and tutor. Although NUS career centre has career advisors in each department to help us to look through our resumes as well, I feel that what we get in ES2007S is much more detailed.
One important takeaway is that resumes should be concise and succinct. The Human Resource (HR) department receives many resumes and may take only a few seconds viewing each resume. Hence, we should bring our main points across quickly. It is also important to remember that each company looks for different values and we should tailor our resumes to suit the needs of the company. Additionally, I've always thought that cover letters are redundant as all the information that we want to convey to the companies have already been written in the resumes. However, I have learnt that cover letters is another avenue for us to sell ourselves to the companies and also supplement them with more details for the information that we have written in the resume. Cover letters should also be tailored to address the needs of each company.
All in all, it has been a very fun 13 weeks taking this module and I have certainly learnt more than I thought I would. To quote my friend, "I've never heard you saying that a lesson is fun." I'm glad to have taken this very useful module in my final semester! (:
Saturday 20 April 2013
Friday 19 April 2013
ES2007S: Reflection on Oral Presentation
Oral presentation (OP) ended on Tuesday for me, and it was a load off my shoulders. The preparation towards OP has certainly allowed me to learn several lessons.
As a preparation for the final OP, we had a mock OP that allowed us to present in front of another group. I'm usually bad at finding words at the last minute, so I prepared a script for OP and memorized it before presenting. At the end of the mock OP, the comment I got was that I was a bit fidgety during my presentation. We gave comments to our group members and members of the other group as well. The most common problems were the excessive usage of fillers and to keep referring to scripts, all of which are issues that can be eliminated with more practice.
Then came Friday, where two groups had their final OP. I remember Brad saying that during OP, the audience's attention should be on the speaker, not on the slides. Hence, it is important to engage the audience via body language and eye contact, and it would be even better if the speaker can just speak to the audience without referring to the slides. We also talked about whether it would be better to present with or without writing and memorizing a script beforehand. (I think only 1 of the presenters that day did not come up with a script before presenting.) The advantage of memorizing a script before presenting is that you'll probably be very fluent when you speak. However, the down side is that you may be caught in a situation when your mind goes blank and you forget your speech and hence, be caught in a situation where there is an awkward silence while you are trying to recall the things to say. This would not happen if we only remembered only the main points of the presentation and made up our speech as we present.
Finally, it was my group's turn to present. After what we learnt last Friday, I decided to take a risk and present without memorizing the script even though I had one written. There were times when I couldn't find the words to say and hence, repeated what was written in the slides. There were also times when my group mates observed that I broke eye contact with the audience when I was trying to recall my points. Also, I thought I used a fair bit of fillers (but no comments were made on that), and I actually felt nervous and thought I spoke quite fast. To my surprise, the comment I got from the class was that it was good that I helped to slow down the pace of my group's presentation.
So, having completed OP, I think that most of the problems that we face during presentation, such as the usage of fillers and our body language, can be changed with more practice. With more practice and confidence, I also think that we will learn to present without having to write scripts beforehand!
As a preparation for the final OP, we had a mock OP that allowed us to present in front of another group. I'm usually bad at finding words at the last minute, so I prepared a script for OP and memorized it before presenting. At the end of the mock OP, the comment I got was that I was a bit fidgety during my presentation. We gave comments to our group members and members of the other group as well. The most common problems were the excessive usage of fillers and to keep referring to scripts, all of which are issues that can be eliminated with more practice.
Then came Friday, where two groups had their final OP. I remember Brad saying that during OP, the audience's attention should be on the speaker, not on the slides. Hence, it is important to engage the audience via body language and eye contact, and it would be even better if the speaker can just speak to the audience without referring to the slides. We also talked about whether it would be better to present with or without writing and memorizing a script beforehand. (I think only 1 of the presenters that day did not come up with a script before presenting.) The advantage of memorizing a script before presenting is that you'll probably be very fluent when you speak. However, the down side is that you may be caught in a situation when your mind goes blank and you forget your speech and hence, be caught in a situation where there is an awkward silence while you are trying to recall the things to say. This would not happen if we only remembered only the main points of the presentation and made up our speech as we present.
Finally, it was my group's turn to present. After what we learnt last Friday, I decided to take a risk and present without memorizing the script even though I had one written. There were times when I couldn't find the words to say and hence, repeated what was written in the slides. There were also times when my group mates observed that I broke eye contact with the audience when I was trying to recall my points. Also, I thought I used a fair bit of fillers (but no comments were made on that), and I actually felt nervous and thought I spoke quite fast. To my surprise, the comment I got from the class was that it was good that I helped to slow down the pace of my group's presentation.
So, having completed OP, I think that most of the problems that we face during presentation, such as the usage of fillers and our body language, can be changed with more practice. With more practice and confidence, I also think that we will learn to present without having to write scripts beforehand!
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