Final Critical Reflection

1) Module Learning Reflection

At the start of the course, I set the goal of wanting to be more confident in public speaking and improve my communication skills. As I reflect these 13 weeks, I do note that I have improved in my public speaking through the presentations that we were tasked to give. The constructive feedback from classmates during the mock presentation helped me in knowing the areas that I needed to work on improving. I tried to work on those to execute a better presentation during the final in-class presentation.

In terms of communication skills, I had a lot of fun interacting with different people whom I have not spoken to before. I am glad that there were opportunities for this to happen as I do not frequently step out of my comfort zone. Thus, now when I meet someone new, I am likely to be more proactive in striking a conversation with them. This will come in handy during my IWSP when networking with industry professionals.

Looking forward, I should continue to hone my skills through more practice beforehand and to record or time myself to be able to review my progress.

Thank you, Professor Blackstone, for creating a safe environment for the class to connect and communicate with one another. All the opportunities for interaction were beneficial for us. See you around in school.

2) Presentation Showcase Reflection

I was given the chance of being a part of the showcase committee and volunteered to help out with the seating allocations. This involved directing attendees to available seats as well as ensuring that everyone is seated during stipulated timings.

A challenge I faced was to be able to rearrange the seating arrangement in a short notice. The seat arrangements were set initially which consisted of different areas for the presenting team, students, faculty members and judges. However, the event turnout had more people than anticipated. This resulted in the team having to relocate the academic staff seating positions and communicating to them on their new allocated areas.

A positive takeaway would be crowd management. It was great that the whole cohort was cooperative. When told to be seated or showing them an assigned seat, everyone was understanding and sat down quickly. This made it easier for the team as we did not need to repeatedly inform them to take a seat.

Overall, effective communication skills are crucial in noteworthy events like this as there is a lot of things going on during the actual day. It is key to be able to effectively communicate to attendees for them to react the way you wish. Attendees will not listen if there is poor communication between them and us.

Additionally, there are also several different roles involved; communication is also important to ensure that everyone is on the same page and understands what is expected of them. Swathi made a commendable effort in making sure that everything was in align and that the event was running smoothly.