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.