So, it's the end of the school year already, and our ES2007S has come to an end. However, I believe that the skills that we took away and the memories that we created together will last.
For me, ES2007S was not the first time I learn about communication. However, it was by far the most memorable. Perhaps, it was because of the small class size and various activities which Ms.Lim provided that bonded us together. The workload is heavy, that's no doubt. But it was worth it. In term of communication skills, what I took away was the better knowledge to write application letters, to behave during interviews, to write and present proposal. In addition, knowledge about the "silent communication" (gesture, body language...) also helped me when during daily activities, such as when I was conducting talks for my juniors, organizing meetings or just simply talking to someone. The best part out of it is to have a successful application to NUS's Overseas College program in Silicon Valley, where I get to study in Stanford and work for a start-up company - VSee - for a year. And I am glad that I was able to applies the skills that we learned from Ms. Lim and our peer-teaching friends to that. Plus, it wouldn't have been as successful if Ms.Lim hadn't generously helped my to refine my application resume as well. So for me ES2007S was definitely beneficial.
However, the most that I was able to gain from this modules was friends and the chance to get out of my daily engineering - computing student's routine. Back in the first year, I spent most of my time at labs, working on programs, electronic circuits and computers. Hence, it was rather lonely. Plus, I only 1 or 2 modules that had project work for each semester so I didn't have many people to work with, although my teammates was very nice. As a result, having a class that requires a lot of talking early on every Monday and Thursday was refreshing. In fact, it's the only time that I didn't fell asleep when studying so early :) I got to talk with everyone about all sorts of things, not just things what Ms.Lim asked us to discuss (haha) and found out many interesting things, like how people from different countries do express their anger; how to say "I love you" in different languages... all adds up to the missing part of my student life.
And I found wonderful teammates at the same time. Firstly, it's Akash, Ao Yun, Hui Ting in our peer-teaching group. Everyone was very open-minded and was willing to contribute a lot to the success of the team. For peer-teaching, there was a day that we spent the night together at SoC, till around 3AM plus, to finish our slides and ideas. Hui Ting was on fever as well, but she tried her best to stay as well. Then, it was LiSu and Shawn for our proposal, which they helped me a lot on when I was busy with my CCA and interviews. They are also very nice friends :) Then it was everyone else in the class that makes these whole 13 weeks so memorable. And every Monday and Thursday was more of a gathering than a class, which I really wished to had more of.
In short, ES2007S was more than just a regular module. It was a special time that I enjoy, treasure as well as learn from. There are certain thing that I wish I did during the last 13 weeks: write on my blog and comment on my friend's blog more, as well as being more helpful when it comes to the proposal. It was a extremely busy period for me, but there are times that I should utilized for to do that, instead of sitting around and doing silly things.
I was thinking of the paper that we stick on our back at the start of the class. Mine has a lot of "tall" and "smart" on them. And I wonder if you have a chance to do it again now, what would you write on it? :)
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
A journey of the whole semester
So, the last session is over and the term has ended. It was really sad not to be able to come to Science early on Monday and Thursday... For me, a module is a journey and it has always been hard for me to end such "adventure". For that, I will try not to talk very much about the skills that I gained, but rather feelings that I had.
For me, the topic of effective communication is not very unfamiliar. I have been taking communication workshop, reviewing my resume and such after I graduated from high school. It had go quite okay, as I had managed to secure jobs during interviews for a few times already. Because of I that, I was quite alert to what I say/do (though I haven't been able to get rid of all the bad habits). However, an effect that comes along with that is making myself too "formal". For example, during the first activity in class, most of the words I received was "tall", "smart" but not a single "friendly" impression. My friends and colleagues also said that only seems to open up and being casual after a very long time (about a year or so).
And I think after a semester, my friendliness actually increased, not much, but it did increased. For example, I talk more on out-of-class things with my teammates, Akash, Hui Ting, Ao Yun, Li Su and Shawn, instead of just technical issues. The number of people that I actually felt "close" was bigger also, 7 instead of around 2-3 people in my previous classes.
Admittedly, it haven't been able to make much friend in the past, due to certain incidents in the past. However, I do took part in activities that involves a lot of people, like leading a group in orientation camp, organizing gathering and even do some work as a youth mentor for kids. Plus, I am still approachable for others to seek help in study and work, which many mistook for "friendliness". But I have rarely go beyond that border. As a result, there was a time where I was able to count the number of friends on one hand...
Having gone through the modules, I think I was able to understand more about communication and use it why I talked to my friends. It really helps, especially when my friends are depressed and don't want to tell me, since I can try to observe things like gesture, facial expressions and try to guess what's going on. It also helps me to loosen up while talking with others, becoming more "friendly" at the very least.
In short, I really glad I took the modules, because not only it teaches me things to use in my work life, it also aided me tremendously in my personal relationship with friends and family members. And that 's really more enough for me to appreciate the past 13 weeks.
The semester comes to an end, but I still hope that we can keep in touch :)
For me, the topic of effective communication is not very unfamiliar. I have been taking communication workshop, reviewing my resume and such after I graduated from high school. It had go quite okay, as I had managed to secure jobs during interviews for a few times already. Because of I that, I was quite alert to what I say/do (though I haven't been able to get rid of all the bad habits). However, an effect that comes along with that is making myself too "formal". For example, during the first activity in class, most of the words I received was "tall", "smart" but not a single "friendly" impression. My friends and colleagues also said that only seems to open up and being casual after a very long time (about a year or so).
And I think after a semester, my friendliness actually increased, not much, but it did increased. For example, I talk more on out-of-class things with my teammates, Akash, Hui Ting, Ao Yun, Li Su and Shawn, instead of just technical issues. The number of people that I actually felt "close" was bigger also, 7 instead of around 2-3 people in my previous classes.
Admittedly, it haven't been able to make much friend in the past, due to certain incidents in the past. However, I do took part in activities that involves a lot of people, like leading a group in orientation camp, organizing gathering and even do some work as a youth mentor for kids. Plus, I am still approachable for others to seek help in study and work, which many mistook for "friendliness". But I have rarely go beyond that border. As a result, there was a time where I was able to count the number of friends on one hand...
Having gone through the modules, I think I was able to understand more about communication and use it why I talked to my friends. It really helps, especially when my friends are depressed and don't want to tell me, since I can try to observe things like gesture, facial expressions and try to guess what's going on. It also helps me to loosen up while talking with others, becoming more "friendly" at the very least.
In short, I really glad I took the modules, because not only it teaches me things to use in my work life, it also aided me tremendously in my personal relationship with friends and family members. And that 's really more enough for me to appreci
Publish Post
The semester comes to an end, but I still hope that we can keep in touch :)
What matters is your confidence (Oral reflection)
[Wow, I actually missed the deadline for this blog, because I thought that there 's only one left :( Hope everyone still read it :D ]
Individual reflection
I believe that as students in NUS, we have already experienced oral presentation, or at least had a chance to stand in front of a group and talk about something. I have going through a few, but this presentation is really something special, since it's a presentation that I never have thought about.
Previously, all the presentation that I have joined was those that I am confident about, or at least have a big interest in. However, for the topic that we chose, I was having a lot of doubt about it at the beginning, to be honest. It was because of the past experience in working on environmental-related project that shows me how hard it is to implement such an idea. Hence, even when I am working on the proposal and a few days before the presentation, I was going back and forth the idea, think how should I convince the others if I can even believe in it.
However, the weekend before it, I talked that over with one of my friend, who is doing a campaign about recylcing. And it was that talked that reassured me, as she told me that all the "green" ideas are actually not-at-all feasible, unless you believe in it. For example, if you don't believe that people are going to recycle, you are not going to facilitate them with proper recycling bins and thus, lose a chance to get them recycle waste. Moreover, if you don't believe in the idea of recycling, there 's a high chance that you won't do it yourself, which is worse. After that, we talked more about the technical part of the proposal, which aided my a lot during the Q&A session.
During my presentation, I have made several "silly" things, for example, touching my hair; forgot to look at everyone and focus on Ms.Lim instead; looking up & closing my eyes when I was thinking; not smiling much...etc and I was nervous when it was about my turn to present also. These are things that I have been trying to improve and perhaps haven't archived by talking this class. However, I will just try again, until it's done.
I think that I was able to do quite well in the Q&A sessions, because I made myself believe in what I am presenting about. And perhaps that is the most important thing about a presentation. In reality, it's not that easy to present flawlessly, I believe that as long as you have confidence in what you talk and equip yourself with presentation skill knowledge (you needn't do it correctly all the time, just whenever you remember is okay), you can make a good presentation.
Team-wise
I am quite glad for the efforts my team have made. As my usual routine, I started off the wiki first, then the proposal as well as the slides. But after a while, I started to slack off a bit, to be honest. Then there was NOC interviews, work for NUSSU Welfare and Vietnamese Community as well as my projects and so call "promise" with my prof to help him write something. There was a week that i didn't bother to check my email and thus, the proposal. So I am very glad that Shawn and LiSu helped completing it.
I was rather pleased about our slides. Though I still think that is missing something (compared to the slides that I have seen), it might just a nameless worries because many others said that it was nice :D
For me, I really want to make slides design like these, but I have to admit that I don't have that kind of talent :D
Our presentation went well. Shawn's intro was interesting and caught the audience attention, and LiSu left the audience with laughter, which makes them remember us. And it was because of their part went smoothly that I could start smoothly, too.
Overall, I am glad that I have a good time in my team, and I am grateful for having Shawn & LiSu as my teamates :D
Individual reflection
I believe that as students in NUS, we have already experienced oral presentation, or at least had a chance to stand in front of a group and talk about something. I have going through a few, but this presentation is really something special, since it's a presentation that I never have thought about.
Previously, all the presentation that I have joined was those that I am confident about, or at least have a big interest in. However, for the topic that we chose, I was having a lot of doubt about it at the beginning, to be honest. It was because of the past experience in working on environmental-related project that shows me how hard it is to implement such an idea. Hence, even when I am working on the proposal and a few days before the presentation, I was going back and forth the idea, think how should I convince the others if I can even believe in it.
However, the weekend before it, I talked that over with one of my friend, who is doing a campaign about recylcing. And it was that talked that reassured me, as she told me that all the "green" ideas are actually not-at-all feasible, unless you believe in it. For example, if you don't believe that people are going to recycle, you are not going to facilitate them with proper recycling bins and thus, lose a chance to get them recycle waste. Moreover, if you don't believe in the idea of recycling, there 's a high chance that you won't do it yourself, which is worse. After that, we talked more about the technical part of the proposal, which aided my a lot during the Q&A session.
During my presentation, I have made several "silly" things, for example, touching my hair; forgot to look at everyone and focus on Ms.Lim instead; looking up & closing my eyes when I was thinking; not smiling much...etc and I was nervous when it was about my turn to present also. These are things that I have been trying to improve and perhaps haven't archived by talking this class. However, I will just try again, until it's done.
I think that I was able to do quite well in the Q&A sessions, because I made myself believe in what I am presenting about. And perhaps that is the most important thing about a presentation. In reality, it's not that easy to present flawlessly, I believe that as long as you have confidence in what you talk and equip yourself with presentation skill knowledge (you needn't do it correctly all the time, just whenever you remember is okay), you can make a good presentation.
Team-wise
I am quite glad for the efforts my team have made. As my usual routine, I started off the wiki first, then the proposal as well as the slides. But after a while, I started to slack off a bit, to be honest. Then there was NOC interviews, work for NUSSU Welfare and Vietnamese Community as well as my projects and so call "promise" with my prof to help him write something. There was a week that i didn't bother to check my email and thus, the proposal. So I am very glad that Shawn and LiSu helped completing it.
I was rather pleased about our slides. Though I still think that is missing something (compared to the slides that I have seen), it might just a nameless worries because many others said that it was nice :D
For me, I really want to make slides design like these, but I have to admit that I don't have that kind of talent :D
Our presentation went well. Shawn's intro was interesting and caught the audience attention, and LiSu left the audience with laughter, which makes them remember us. And it was because of their part went smoothly that I could start smoothly, too.
Overall, I am glad that I have a good time in my team, and I am grateful for having Shawn & LiSu as my teamates :D
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Language shock - Inter-cultural confict in the language we use
Most of the time, when we talk about cultural conflicts, we often think more about actions, like how prolonged look at on person is considered rude (as staring) or an showing one's attention to them. However, there cultural differences shows in the language as well, and sometimes cause disturbance to others.
I would like to share my experiences when I first got to Singapore, around two years ago. Back then, I was actually 'shocked' by the language here - Singlish & Chinese in particular. Back in high school, I studied British English as well as American English, but more or less, I were advised to be polite, such as saying "Thanks", "Excuse me" and "Please" whenever I can. However, after arriving in NUS campus (Prince George Park residence, to be specific), and went down the canteen and order the food there, I was deeply troubled. The food that I ordered was no longer available, and the owner show me another dish, saying "Can or not?".
I thought I have done something and made him angry, but in later time, I discovered that 's what they called "Singlish". It was not nice, at least to me... And through my first semester here, I was struggling when working with my Singaporean friends, thinking they have some hostile attitude to me because of the language...
The second bad impression about language issue was during my internship, at one of NUS's robotic lab. Back then, except for my professor and my supervisor, everyone else speak Chinese, during daily conversation and sometimes, even in very technical discussion. It frustrate me for a long time, since I don't know what they are talking about....
In the end, things are settled as I found opportunities to talk with each of my friend / and ask them about why they do so. It turns out those are just habits, and they didn't mean anything. Still, I still suffer a bit from it, being less active when talking with people who use a lot of Singlish / Chinese while speaking.
All in all, I think we need to take others into consideration while speaking, to talk in a way that makes them comfortable, which is more like British English, in my opinion. Of course, we also have to adapt, trying not to think too much in our own view also, since like my case, your friends might not meant anything to you, and you just need to voice out a bit, not hating them :)
There is also an interesting video about a similar experience also, about a guy who comes to the US from Africa
I would like to share my experiences when I first got to Singapore, around two years ago. Back then, I was actually 'shocked' by the language here - Singlish & Chinese in particular. Back in high school, I studied British English as well as American English, but more or less, I were advised to be polite, such as saying "Thanks", "Excuse me" and "Please" whenever I can. However, after arriving in NUS campus (Prince George Park residence, to be specific), and went down the canteen and order the food there, I was deeply troubled. The food that I ordered was no longer available, and the owner show me another dish, saying "Can or not?".
I thought I have done something and made him angry, but in later time, I discovered that 's what they called "Singlish". It was not nice, at least to me... And through my first semester here, I was struggling when working with my Singaporean friends, thinking they have some hostile attitude to me because of the language...
The second bad impression about language issue was during my internship, at one of NUS's robotic lab. Back then, except for my professor and my supervisor, everyone else speak Chinese, during daily conversation and sometimes, even in very technical discussion. It frustrate me for a long time, since I don't know what they are talking about....
In the end, things are settled as I found opportunities to talk with each of my friend / and ask them about why they do so. It turns out those are just habits, and they didn't mean anything. Still, I still suffer a bit from it, being less active when talking with people who use a lot of Singlish / Chinese while speaking.
All in all, I think we need to take others into consideration while speaking, to talk in a way that makes them comfortable, which is more like British English, in my opinion. Of course, we also have to adapt, trying not to think too much in our own view also, since like my case, your friends might not meant anything to you, and you just need to voice out a bit, not hating them :)
There is also an interesting video about a similar experience also, about a guy who comes to the US from Africa
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Managing conflict - Keep a cold head, but a warm heart
As many have pointed out, conflict is really a part of life that you can't avoid. We can have conflict with many people, stranger, colleagues, friend alike. Sometimes, we even have conflict with ourselves... And most of the time, conflicts will cause severe aftermath if not handled properly. What's worse, the consequenes can increase many fold if can't be calm while we are handling it...
Having been in such a situation before, I would like to share my story here. I hope that if you have time to read it, you will take precautions in what you say/do so as not to hurt your friend, like what I did...
That's story of mine. Though it might not look like a conflict case, but I think this one is qualified as a conflict in interest and ideas, as his need and ours was different at a time, so do our expectation of his performance. And since we was not able to come to a common solution for that, the conflict was not solved effectively, leaving the result like that.
Nevertheless, we walked away with big lesson but paid a big price as well. In short, what I can say is that when these kind of things happen, be it conflicts in your interests, our ideology, or anything else, please take a deep breath first, be calm and analyze the pros and cons of each actions. Moreover, you will need to keep a warm heart to accept others's faults also, as they also have their limts and can't always do what you want them to.
P.S: As I am writing in a rush while traveling back home, the article is not organized very clearly. Please excuse for any errors I made and points them out so I can fix them :)
Having been in such a situation before, I would like to share my story here. I hope that if you have time to read it, you will take precautions in what you say/do so as not to hurt your friend, like what I did...
Just recently, I was managing the welfare team for Vietnamese community. We have been through a few events together, from organizing the Mid-autumn festival to organizng a vacationm camp for the Vietnamese students, and the Lunar New Year gathering also... Another special activity that we do is a radio show, in which you send wishes or thoughts (anything you can write, basically) to people you care, accompanied with a song. Handling the creation of the studio is me, AAA - my event organizing buddy and four member of the welfare team: BBB, CCC, DDD and EEE.
We have been doing 5 shows so far, all receive a moderate amount of response. And then, the next week is already 14/2 - VDay, so we decided to make a special program for it. Everyone was excited, and we talked a lot about making it as special as the day itself. I even went out photographing a picture and crafted somekind of teaser-picture for the show.
We received around 10 request in total (around the same as our previous shows) and proceed to making the show. While I was writing the script with AAAPhu, the image part is given to DDD and CCC, while EEE and BBB was in charged of the publishing part.
All gone quite well. We finished writing the script, the image took a bit longer and we finshed getting all the material at 8. So I called BBB and asked him to publish the show.
Then we waited, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, half an hour... and then it was already 10:45. Wondering what has happened I called BBB (for the 5th time) to check, and he was still doing it (normally, it only takes 10 minutes to publish the show). As VDay is almost over and the show was still not on, we get lots of question from those who sent us the request, and somehow, that frustrates me and AAA, having us complaining about the attitude of the publishing team. Plus, they have not been active so far, so we get even more irritating...
In the end, the show went on air at 11:20, with us having to jumped in and do something else as well. And we are nowhere happy about that. Thus, I and AAA called the guy and scolded him!
In the next day, he quit! ....
After a few days, we actually calm down, getting back to our sense and started talking to BBB. We found out that at that time, he has just returned from his part-time work, tired because of a lot of work and complains from the boss also. Hence, that slowed his progress a greate deal. After that long lunch, we decided to let the guy go and take care of his work him. In addition, the mental injury that we made him gone through (by what we said) is somewhat healed (not completely), as we came down to a common understanding. But the aftermath is that, we lost a team member and almost destroy our relationship with BBB also, just because we did not understand his situation...
That's story of mine. Though it might not look like a conflict case, but I think this one is qualified as a conflict in interest and ideas, as his need and ours was different at a time, so do our expectation of his performance. And since we was not able to come to a common solution for that, the conflict was not solved effectively, leaving the result like that.
Nevertheless, we walked away with big lesson but paid a big price as well. In short, what I can say is that when these kind of things happen, be it conflicts in your interests, our ideology, or anything else, please take a deep breath first, be calm and analyze the pros and cons of each actions. Moreover, you will need to keep a warm heart to accept others's faults also, as they also have their limts and can't always do what you want them to.
P.S: As I am writing in a rush while traveling back home, the article is not organized very clearly. Please excuse for any errors I made and points them out so I can fix them :)
Monday, February 14, 2011
Application to Blizzard Entertainment as Game Programmer intern
Recruitment Ad (Click to view full size)
Application letter
Application letter
Tong Huu Khiem
25 Lower Kent Ridge Road, #XXX
Singapore - 119081
February 10th, 2011
Mr. Ryan Murray,
Human Resources Coordinator,
HR Department,
Blizzard Entertainment, Irvine, California.
Application for internship as Game programmer
Dear Mr. Murray,
My name is Tong Huu Khiem, currently pursuing a degree in Computer Engineering at the National University of Singapore. A week ago, the internship recruitment for game programmer was posted on Blizzard Entertainment website, and it really caught my interest. Thus, I am writing this letter to you, eager to become a part of “Blizzard country” during this summer.
Being a gamer as well as a programmer, I have long been fascinated about becoming one of those who actually creates games that captivate even the most demanding gamers, titles such as Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo – Blizzard’s trademark. And even though my game development experience has just started last year, with a few simple games, I have been lucky to meet and work with passionate teammates, innovating existing games with new ideas. For example, we created “Resource Wars”, a desktop game developed on the Monopoly board, and a few other games that can be downloaded from the links in my resume.
Besides that, frequent training in NUS has equipped me with sufficient mastery of C++ and OpenGL, extensive exposure with scripting languages such as Python, JavaScript and Ruby as well as Windows application development experience. In addition, I believe my knowledge in producing user interfaces, movies, animations and other types of graphics will become useful when working with Blizzard’s designers.
Given a chance to prove myself, I am confident that my past experiences and skills will create positive contributions while I work as part of Blizzard’s development team, be it improvements on established or under-development titles, such as Dota 2.0 and new version of World of Warcraft. I am looking forward to a challenging yet enjoyable experience in “Blizzard country”, where my skills and passion for gaming are utilized to the fullest.
Attached with this letter is my resume and referral letter. If you would like to schedule an interview, please call me at +65-9156 1848, anytime. And I am certain that you won't be disappointed.
Thank you.
Yours Sincerely,
Tong HUU KHIEM (Mr.) | +65-9156-1848
Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore
Enclosure: Resume, Referral letter
Sunday, January 23, 2011
The key to sucess for engineers - effective communication
Being good at communication brings many benefits and the most obvious of them all is the ability to talk and listen well. This has proven extremely useful for me in my team projects, like software development. In that project, we were to build an entirely new software from sketch, and it must be different from any existing one. As a result, each of us had to generate a lot of ideas and convey it to others. Without the ability to listen and understand effective, those special features that makes our product stands out would have been crossed out at the beginning, as they were too “uncommon”. And the ability to understand others and get them to understand you is not the only thing effective communication benefits us. We still need to write documents, proposal… to convince others. That’s where the rest of the effective communication skill set comes into the picture. And we appreciate that we know it.
In short, although saying that I can communicate effective at the moment is not very true, I do appreciate what the skill gave me through my experience. Thus, I am looking forward to improve it through the ES2007S module.
Reference:
- Images taken from Fine-tooning: http://www.fine-tooning.com/Effective_Communication_L.jpg
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Setting up ES2007S blogs
Hello,
I 'm Khiem from the same ES2007S class as you guys. This morning we have been divided into 2 blogging group and I opted to help out a bit. Hence, if I would like to received a link from your blogger page so we can work on the e-portfolio component together.
Below is the list of our friends in the blogging group, whose contacts I have collected and their blog's link (if any). If you haven't done so, please send me your contact and blogger link via my email / phone at the end of the post.
Currently, we had:
Thanks for your help :)
I 'm Khiem from the same ES2007S class as you guys. This morning we have been divided into 2 blogging group and I opted to help out a bit. Hence, if I would like to received a link from your blogger page so we can work on the e-portfolio component together.
Below is the list of our friends in the blogging group, whose contacts I have collected and their blog's link (if any). If you haven't done so, please send me your contact and blogger link via my email / phone at the end of the post.
Currently, we had:
- Terence Koek:
- Ang Xiu Qin:
- Desmond Ng (Ng Junyuan Desmond):
- Chen Yan:
- Doris Lin (Lin Kaishi Doris):
- Tran Trong Dan:
- Tham Hsu Wei Shawn
- Goh Wee Lee
Thanks for your help :)
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