Critical Reflection

Module Learning

Before attending this module, I had never written a 'proper' report that required following an APA style and citations. The closest thing to a report I had written, is the report I wrote for my final year project during my polytechnic days, which was, to put it nicely, bad.

As for communications skills, I did not even have the ability to start a conversation, which was further worsened during my time in NS where I only worked with the same five people for around a year and a half. In other words, I was already way out of my comfort zone the moment I stepped into the class.

However, through the module, I had to continuously work with skills that I was unfamiliar with and learn many more to use in the assignments. I had to learn from the ground up how to conduct research on the engineering topic I have chosen, how to cite the information I used, and how to arrange the information such that it is easy to read and digest. 

The module also gave me many chances to learn how to work with people I am unfamiliar with, and how to start discussions to finish an assignment. Through the presentation, I learnt how to present information in such a way that will not bore, and more importantly, stick to the audience. I learnt that rather than memorizing a script, it is better to memorize key points instead.I may have messed up badly for my part of the presentation, I’m sure that I can use this experience as a stepping stone for any future presentations.

Project Learning

For my team’s research project, I was nominated to be the group leader. My role in the project was to delegate work for each of the members including myself. Thankfully, I had some experience leading a small group during my NS days, which taught me how to delegate work to others. While I was not very familiar with my group members at the start of the project, I learnt how to look out for hints that show what each member was good at, allowing me to assign the right job for the right person to do. 

Using what I learnt in reader response as well as using the sample works as reference, I came up with the introduction and provided talking points for my team to answer and fill up the report. Knowing that merely doing this will result in a fragmented report, I went ahead to write up the draft like an open ended question to make it easier to integrate all the answers. After all the information was collected and compiled, I learned during the consultation how to further arrange the information given to make it easier to read and have a certain “flow”

My experience through this module has undoubtedly taught me many life-skills that I'm sure will be of great use to me throughout my life in the future.