The Beginning

At the beginning of this course, I have stated that communication is the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs, between 2 or more parties (as defined by www.dictionary.com) and throughout the course, if there was any change to my value of effective communication, it probably grew stronger.

Having interacted with classmates from different backgrounds and nationalities, who have been exposed to different education and cultures, we have had quite a bit of disagreements on the different issues we came across throughout the course of the module. The best part was that my comment on Weiren's blog actually drew responses from people from other countries! (My comments had the tendency of drawing MANY feedbacks...) And from that incident alone we were able to see that there were indeed major differences in the thinking of people from different backgrounds and when one refuses to "listen" to what the other has got to say, there won't be any effective communication between them at all. Inter-cultural communication still poses a great challenge for me and I foresee myself facing a lot more of such communication problems next year when I am at the USA.

One of the things I have learnt was that during a disagreement, one of the parties definitely has to step back in order to review the whole situation and think of how things can be resolved, even if a consensus could not be reached. If both sides keep trying to reiterate their points, thinking that just by saying them a few more times and louder, the opposite party would understand, they are wrong.

One of the reasons why this module has been so enjoyable is because it allowed us to really interact and communicate with one another, unlike my core module lectures which I normally either sleep through or can barely keep myself semi-conscious during them. The activities and assignments were really useful and practical as they really helped us prepare for our job applications in the future.

Why this entry is named "The Beginning" is not only because I was required to talk about the beginning, but because to me, and I am sure to many of us, this is just the beginning. Many of us will be graduating in 1 or 2 years and when we start working, it would be time for us to put what we have learnt in this course "Professional Communication" into practical use. And by then, I hope many of us would still be able to recall the fun and laughter we shared during the classes and smile when you do. Good luck to the Zoo-Keeper Wanna-Bes, the Forever-Grouchy-Looking Dude, the Ever-MIA Classmate, the Nine-To-The-Power-Of-3 Interviewee and everyone else (I can't come up with nicknames for everyone :p).