Self-Introduction

 Dear Professor Blackstone,

I am Stanley Quek, a year one civil engineering student in your effective communication class, and I hope this letter will allow you to know me better. I graduated from Ngee Ann Polytechnic in 2018 with a diploma in aerospace electronics with a minor in business. I went from learning how to fly a plane to learning how to programme the different types of equipment utilised in the plane. You must be wondering why did I change my specialisation from aerospace to civil engineering when these two disciplines have little to no relations. My father’s business is specialised in warehouse renovation and revolves around civil engineering, but he has no formal education on it. Being a civil engineering student, I hope to bring forth my knowledge and be a great successor in his place.

In terms of communication, I am very outspoken, and I am not afraid to speak my mind as long as it is factual. I view it as both a strength and a weakness because not every type of person can handle the truth. There were a few instances where I’m at work with my superior. He was impressed by how outspoken I am as I could make critical judgements and give comments on how they can be improved in the workspace. Also, there were times where my acquaintances disliked how I am spoiling their outlook in life and I feel that it is something I need to work on and judge for myself because you cannot always use the same method to answer all the questions in life.

To me, I see communication as an essential skill in life, especially when you hold a high position. You do not see an employee commanding the superior in the workplace, but the superior has to be able to give accurate and comprehensible commands to the employees so they would not make any mistakes in the workplace. This is what I hope to accomplish in this effective communication module, as I aspire to take over my family’s business and be able to communicate correctly, completely and clearly to my future employees. I believe that under your tutelage I would be able to refine these basic communications skills.


Warmest regards,

Stanley Quek

2000904

Group 5

CVE1281

  

Comments

  1. Unknown23 January 2021 at 02:30

    Dear Stanley

    It is nice to see that you took up civil engineering to help out in your father's business. Your letter overall was short and simple, even with the detailed reasonings. It was clear to understand and you have a very good understanding in terms of the language and tone used.

    Nonetheless, I hope you would have written your letter in a much more neater way. My personal opinion, I would have preferred if you had split up the different sections and used more smaller paragraphs rather than squeezing everything into a a few bigger paragraphs.

    Overall this letter was great. Keep up the work and I hope you would be able to achieve your goals !

    Regards
    Sarah

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. stanley29 January 2021 at 00:10

      Hi Sarah,
      Thank you for the constructive feedback and encouragement. I will take note for future letters and splitting my paragraphs for people to better digest the information.

      I too hope that you can achieve your goals in your letter.

      Best regards,
      Stanley Quek

      Delete
  2. Bariah24 January 2021 at 03:25

    Thank you for the letter, Stanley. I enjoyed reading your letter! It meets most of the criteria for the 7C's of Communication. I love how your letter is engaging and concise.

    However, I was slightly disturbed by your inconsistent 'I' - sometimes, it's in lower caps. Also, I do not understand the part where you stated "you cannot always use the same method to answer all the questions in life". Personally, I feel that there is no link to your strength and weakness in communication.

    That being said, I'm definitely impressed by the fact that you took up civil engineering which is slightly different from your previous field of study in hopes to be the next successor of your family business. I wish you all the best for that and good job writing this letter!

    ReplyDelete
  3. JER24 January 2021 at 20:22

    Hi Stanley, from your letter I can tell that you are definitely someone who is very out-going and I think that really made you stand out from the crowd as someone who is not afraid to voice his opinion.
    This sentence "He was impressed by how outspoken i am as i could make critical judgements and give comments on how they can be improved in the workspace."
    Some improvement that can be made would be the capitalization of "I", consistency is very important.
    The sentence can perhaps be rephrased as "Give my outspoken character, I wasn't afraid of making judgement that could be critical. Also, room for improvement can also be made in the work".

    ReplyDelete
  4. Brad Blackstone25 January 2021 at 18:22

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Brad Blackstone25 January 2021 at 18:23

    Dear Stanley,

    Thank you for this detailed introductory letter. You cover the parameters of the assignment well and illustrate with decent explanations and examples. The letter is certainly informative. I'm particularly impressed by your explanation of your interest and how that connects to your father and the family business.

    In the post, you also explain how your future work will probably relate to your interpersonal needs in terms of communication. What would make this section more effective is for you to describe those future scenarios in the third person. Frame it as what a leader needs to do rather than as 'you.' In that way you won't be speaking to the reader. (I do hope you can take what you learn in the module to those potential situations.)

    The area in this letter that needs the most impovement is the section on strength and weakness in communication, but again this is in terms of issues of language use and expression. Please see below:

    1. words/phrases/collocation
    -- the different equipments > (count versus nojcount) the different equipment
    -- little to no relations > little to no relation
    -- -- He was impressed by how outspoken i am as i could make critical judgements and give comments on how they can be improved in the workspace.
    > (unclear statement, ambiguous word: What does 'they' refer to? Also, check your 'i'.)
    ?
    -- there were times where > there were times when
    -- To me, I see communication ... > (You can be more concise.)
    -- ...especially when you hold a high position... > (lack of formality: Don't talk to your reader using 'you.')

    2. sentence structure
    -- You must be wondering why did I change my specialisation ...
    > (word order: not a question)
    You must be wondering why I changed my specialisation...
    -- There were a few instances where I’m at work with my superior. > (instances = when ... And so? I feel like something is missing in this sentence. Explain: When what?)
    -- Also, there were times where my acquaintances disliked how I am spoiling their outlook in life and i feel that it is something i need to work on and judge for myself because you cannot always use the same method to answer all the questions in life.
    > (lack of conciseness in expression) ?
    (Also, check your use of 'i'.)

    I look forward to seeing how you can polish this letter and to working with you further this term.

    Cheers,

    Brad

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The importance of communication skills for engineers

 “Employers identify communication as one of the basic competencies every graduate should have, asserting that the ability to communicate is valuable for obtaining employment and maintaining successful job performance.” By Sherwyn Morreale, Michael Osborn & Judy Pearson, Professors of Communication (2000). This quote shows how communication is essential in the workforce, the ability to communicate effectively is vital in the workforce as it enhances your portfolio and increases the chances of employment. Good communication skills is the stepping stone to success in any jobs as this ability can help a workplace increase productivity, prevent conflict and reduce the error of miscommunication.
Read more

Critical Reflection

CVE 1281 Effective Communication module was a incredible learning experience. In this module, I have learned many techniques on articulating my ideas in terms of speaking and writing. The goals I had at the start of the module were to improve on my presentation skills and writing skills as I knew that these were some of the skills I needed in near future in workforce. Presentation skill was the most crucial skill I felt I needed to improve on, previously in my introduction letter, I mentioned that I aspire to take over my family business. As a business owner of a small medium enterprise (SME), presentations are no doubt essential as my family business is project based, giving a proposal presentation like the ones during our class to secure a project is part of the job. In this module there were many instances that everyone gets, to do small presentations and get feedback from peers, I found it a valuable experience to practice presentation skills like eye contact, vocalisation, body la...
Read more