Critical Reflection

     Throughout my years in polytechnic as an architecture student, I have always wanted to improve my communication skills, especially in the aspect of presenting and conveying my ideas effectively. However, I have never really taken effective communication seriously, and all of my presentations were lacking, which was always my weakest link in communicating my design ideas to the critics. Together with my quiet nature, this was always a hurdle for me to overcome. When I first noticed effective communication was a module for the trimester, I was afraid and nervous at the same time as I had never been good in my English or communication altogether. Thankfully, effective communication turned out to be rather fun and engaging, which captured my attention to learn and improve myself in my communication skills, be it through getting called to read out what's on the screen, or to challenge myself to further develop my writing skills. 

    The many mini-presentations throughout the trimester greatly helped in my presentation skills. It allowed me to understand the basis of presenting, to first understand my audience and to effectively convey what they wish to find out, one which I was always lacking in. By effectively understanding my audience, I am able to then tailor the idea across as efficiently as possible. Alternatively, body language plays a big part as well, by better presenting myself through effective use of gestures as well as movements, can make or break a presentation. I can confidently say that though my oral presentation was not flawless, I am proud to have been able to come this far in my presentation skills, one where I thought would be impossible to improve. Hopefully, this big step forward will allow me to better improve myself for my future presentations in Capstone as well as in the professional workplace.

   For the research project, it was decided that our research topic would be bamboo, a design idea that really intrigued me, where I was in charge of researching the overall proposed solution and application of the product. The in-depth knowledge gained through research about my own product allowed me to perform exceptionally in the oral presentation. Throughout the project, with the delicate guidance of Professor Brad Blackstone, and the teamwork by my team, I can say that I am proud of what we have achieved in such a tight timeframe. The different attributes of my teammates really helped in pushing the project further, our different strengths meant that we were able to rely on one another to get things done efficiently. For example, Amos is great in his research and writing skills, whilst Kaiyee was exceptional in her directed research and organisation, where I would then be able to piece the project together, though flawed individually, we were able to bounce ideas off each other, as well as take up what the other was unable to, essentially taking our project to greater heights. On top of that, Darren with his splendid presentation skills got the attention of the audiences, breaking the monotonous of our presentation.

    Though daunting at first, the integration of the peer feedback throughout the trimester allowed everyone to learn and improve from one another, making the experience in the classroom not as daunting. My key takeaways from this module, however, would definitely be the basics of presenting as well as allowing myself to improve further in my written language. I hope that through this new knowledge, I am able to carry myself better and gradually improve my presentation skills for future professional use.

    I would like to thank Professor Brad for his guidance as well as for the perfectly curated learning experience, creating such an enjoyable learning process.