Blog Post # 7 Reflection

ES2007S has been an interesting module as well as a time-consuming one for me as it has a lot of assignment to do. But generally I learnt a lot. Especially my teammates (Jie Li and Chen Zhi ) have given me many helps on speaking and writing standard English and I really appreciate their helps.
To improve English is my primary intention for choosing this module. Although Singapore is an English speaking country, almost all my friends can speak Chinese and they tend to speak Chinese with me, generally because their Chinese is better than my English. Thus, I do not actually have many chances to listen and speak English in my everyday life. Luckily the learning environment in this module is very good. Almost all my classmates speak very good English and they are all kind hearted and friendly. I got to know a lot of new phrases and ways of phrasing words.
Here I also want to take this opportunity to thank my classmates for commenting my blog post. I have read through all you comments carefully and all your comments are important and helpful to me. Also, I would like to thank Ms Goh for commenting and editing my assignment and for all your suggestions that you have given.
I certainly know it is not nearly enough to improve English by taking one module. However, I believe things can be done step by step.

Blog Post #6 Biodata

My name is zhang zaizhi, currently a third year students in mechanical engineering in national university of Singapore. I am from china and I have been in Singapore for 3 years.
I have been getting training in NUS Eco-Car team since last year for which we are supposed to make an environmental friendly car and we gained valuable experiences in designing and manufacturing of mechanical components from this project. Before I came to Singapore, I worked as an intern in Shandong Traffic Construction Corporation where valuable working experiences are gained.

I am an independent and responsible person with keen interest in learning and interacting with others. I participate in many school activities and organization such as, soccer competition, Engineering club, American Society of Mechanical Engineering NUS section and so on, from which I enhanced my communication skills and improved my personalities. In my spare time, I also learned many other things that attract me, such as video filming and editing, photoshop, webpage development, etc.

In the coming vacation from May to August, I will work in Data Storage Institute as an intern for which I am supposed to explore the vibration of head suspension in hard disk drive. I wish to further improve my ability in problem solving and communication skills in the future.

Blog Post #5 Open topic

Since supposed to write an open topic blog post regarding to professional communication, I would like to share some thoughts on how to communicate well with others. All those thoughts come from my own experiences, and they are more like to be my standards on communicating with friends.

To make a temporary friend, we only need to show our respect to others, but to make a life-long friend, we need to be sincere. Respect is the foundation for communication between friends, but a better friendship requires more. Despite the prevailing of materialism now days, I still believe sincere is one of the key factors for a good friendship or colleagueship. The only way for people to understand each other is Exchanging their thoughts and feelings sincerely. In view of this, we should express our perceptions to others sincerely and in a suitable manner.

Tolerance is also important. People need to be tolerant. Others may have done something that makes you unhappy, their habit, smell, or characters may make you feel uncomfortable, they may failed to finish the assignment you have assigned them, etc. Such things may happen every day around us. However, nobody and nothing is perfect in this world, we should be clear that we ourselves also have some shortcomings. We just need to be tolerant to each other.

Generally, there are many techniques and other principles on communication with others. But I believe sincere and tolerant are the most basic and important ones

Blog Post #4 Intercultural Communication

At the end of last semester, I packaged all my belongings and prepared for leaving for China for December Vocation. My flight was at 5am early in the morning, which means I can only check out around 3am. However, the office of hostel would be closed at that time so no officer would be there assisting me to check out. (For checking out, some officer need to be there to make sure the room is clean and none of the furniture is damaged. I am also required to return the key to office as well as to sign a form) So I went down to the office and asked them weather I could check out on that afternoon but continue to stay in my room until 3am in the morning when I leave for airport. I also explained to the officers my situation and promised them that I would keep the room clean and everything in good condition when I leave. Unfortunately, they answered "no" firmly and told me I must check out at the moment I left and I was not allowed to stay in my room once I checked out. Their explanation was "I trust you but we have to follow the rules". After considering the condition, they decided to assign one residence assistant (who was also a student) to help me to check out at 3am. The troublesome thing was the student happened to have exam at 8am on that morning. So he complained a lot about the assignment.

From my point of view, I think it is acceptable for me to stay another few hours after I check out because I definitely will do what I have promised them, which is to make sure the room is clean and properties are not damaged at all. They also have all my particulars recorded and they can even fine me if some property is missing. Furthermore, I will continue to stay in the same room after I come back from vocation. However, they just follow the rules although the rules do cause some inconvenience. Actually I do understand that regulations must be implemented strictly else the world will be out of order.
This may not be a typical culture difference, but personally I feel it acceptable to break some rule if it can help others while not having a clear sign showing your action may cause potential problems.
During our conversation, I explained my concern politely and they also replied me in a respectful manner by telling me their concerns. So a solution was found and agreed by all of us.
Actually I believe the only way to deal with intercultural communication is to be respectful and sincere. A good intercultural friendship can be achieved by sincerely explaining your perspectives, your feelings, and your concerns to others, as well as respecting others' habit and belief.

Post #3 Critique on bussiness

From: ENG - UG Progs
Sent: Mon 2009-2-9 12:36
To: ENG YEAR 2; ENG YEAR 3; ENG YEAR 4
Cc: Ashraf Kassim; Christopher Yap (Engrg); Poong Gek Eng
Subject: Concurrent Double Master Program in Logistics and Supply Chain Management, 2009



Dear Students

The Logistics Institute - Asia Pacific are preparing for their first intake in August 2009 for The Concurrent Double Master Program (CDMP). Students who have completed sufficient Mathematics modules and have the interest to pursue a career in Logistics and Supply Chain Management may apply to this program.

There are up to 20 scholarships, valued at more than S$33K for this intake. Final year students accepted into the program will also be placed on an internship scheme in August 2009 and receive a stipend of S$1500 per month while they embark on a part-time course work at NUS. Students in the program may receive further top-up allowance from companies should they be found suitable for employment by the companies.

More information is available on the website: http://www.tliap.nus.edu.sg/dmp/concurrentDMP.aspx Please note the closing date is 31 March 2009 and that final year students need to take the GRE for consideration.


Regards,



Office of Undergraduate Programs

National University of Singapore

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is definitely a mass email sent to all Engineering students. The intention is to inform students the opening of application for concurrent double master degree in logistic and supply chain management. So the salutation is suitable to be wrote as "Dear students". For the title, it is a bit long, but it clearly shows what this email is about, which is good for recipients to grasp the core information quickly. In general, the format is commonly used business style, except they did not include the name of the person sending this email. This actually causes confusions like who should I approach to if I have some enquiries?

This is a quite concise email. In its first paragraph, it roughly introduces the double master degree opportunity and its requirement for applicants. In second paragraph, it focus on the scholarship this program is providing, intending to attract more applicants. This email does not talk too much but give only the core information to our recipients and a link with more details. So those who are interested can explore more on it while others can just ignore it.

However, i think it is also important to provide some other necessary information. One is what students can learn from this program. Is the program focused on research or real application, what is the prospect of graduates of this program? How long it takes to finish this program? Questions like these really concerns me when I firstly read this email. The description about the scholarship is also quite vague. I think the sentences should be phrased better to make it clearer to our recipients. At the last part, I think it is better to provide a link about the GRE test.

Resolving interpersional conflict

A is in charge of logistic for a performance.
B is the director of the performance.

B: Hi A，we need wireless microphone for the performance

A: But we dun have wireless microphone

B: Can you try to borrow them from other committees or clubs?

A: I dun think they have these things, usually microphones are provided by the theater. But the theater we rent this time don't have wireless microphone.

B: How do you know other clubs don't have wireless microphone? you tell me they don't have even before you check with them?

A: This is common sense, everyone knows

B: (stared at A for a while) I dun care how you are going to make it, but you must get at least 4 wireless microphones before next Friday, our rehearsal is drawing near.

A: What can i do? where can i get those microphones?

B: This is your own problem, you are in charge of logistic

A: But you are in charge of the whole performance, you can not ask others to do things out of their reach.

B:.........

A:.........

B think A is not doing his best while A believes B is forcing him to do something out of his reach.

What do you think?

Effective communication skills are important for me

Communication skills have always been an essential factor affecting one's life, both in career and personal affairs. Good communication requires conveying information to others accurately and interpreting massages sent from others precisely in an appropriate manner.

In workplaces, good communication skills is no doubt one of the key qualities that employers are looking for. Good communication enables high workplace efficiency, harmony colleague relationship, and avoids potential errors and mistakes in workplace. In a recent survey of recruiters from companies with more than 50,000 employees, communication skills were cited as the single more important decisive factor in choosing managers. Meanwhile, "University students have been trained intensively in academy, but many are not able to communicate with others effectively", reflected by some employers. In a talk conducted by Deutsche Bank, the employer mentioned that engineering students were usually weak in presentation and interpersonal skills. Thus effective communication skills are especially important for me as an engineering student.

For personal affairs, Communication plays a major role. Through communication, we get to know others, get to like or dislike others, get to help others and be helped by others. Some of them become our life long friends, some become lovers...Communication happens at every moment and everywhere, and is the only way for people to exchange thoughts, feelings, information and so on. Good communication skills enables us to have a good impression on others, to have more friends and to have positive impact on others.

In summary, good communication skills are key factors for our success in both career and personal aspect.