Among other skills that are inborn, I would say that communication skills are not one of them. As an engineering student, I would say that we are not exposed very much to this skill in NUS, though some courses like Human resources are meant for us to interact and communicate well. In my opinion, to communicate effectively is a vital aspect of an engineer since even though you are very good in the technical areas, you need communication skills to explain to people so that they can better understand it.
From my personal experience that I have encountered when I was the Vice-Chairperson of a committee, I found out that communicating effectively indeed helps to resolve a lot of conflicts. Last week, I was a victim of bad communication. I had to give an oral presentation for my final year project and later there was a series of Q&A with my examiner and I could not understand his accent. I had no idea what his questions were and I was quite resilient to ask him to repeat for the third time. At the end I did not answer and I’m sure he must have had a bad impression of me.
I strongly believe that being an effective communicator is an important asset of being of a great leader. Let us take the example of Mr Obama; the way he delivers his speech is very good and this inspires a lot of people especially the youth.
Lastly communicating effectively helps a lot when you are in a foreign country to mingle with the locals and hence learn more about their cultures and values.
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I think I can relate to what you wrote about having a hard time understanding accent! I guess this will increasingly be a communication barrier for Singaporeans because of the uniquely mixed culture and the incoming flow of foreign talents.
ReplyDeleteSometimes, it is not easy to understand an foreign accent and of course, it is also not always simple to convey what we want to say to others as easily. I am not sure if any of you faces this problem, for instances, not able to catch up with what the lecturer is teaching etc.
So in cases like this, how do we ensure we can still achieve effective communication?? In relation to the abovementioned example, it seems like students do not have much of a choice but to try their best to understand, focus and be attentive. However, sometimes it just makes me wonder if it is justified since school fees are paid to ensure that the learning provided is effective.
P.S. I welcomed all foreigners and love their presence and very grateful for their contributions they made to the scoiety!
Thanks, Yuvraj, for this detailed post. You give some very clear examples of why effective communication is important for you.
ReplyDeleteI have a couple specific reactions though:
1) You write as follows: "In my opinion, to communicate effectively is a vital aspect of an engineer since even though you are very good in the technical areas; you need communication skills to explain to people so that they can better understand it."
There are several problems here. Do you see what they are?
2) You write as follows: "Let us take the example of Mr Obama; the way he delivers his speech is very good and this inspires a lot of people especially the youth."
Punctuation is a problem here, as is the ambiguity of the phrase "way he delivers a speech."
If you more specifically addressed what Obama does to communicate his ideas so effectively, your writing would have more resonance with the reader.
Think about my suggestions and please make the needed edits.
I appreciate your effort!
I believe students at the faculty of science has the same problem as the students at engineering. In fact, I think we poor science students are worse off, as it is not compulsory to take up modules that improve communication (which may explain some of the really boring and unintelligible science professsors).
ReplyDeleteAs Zi Qi has mentioned, I also suffered under professors with thick accents. However, I always try to empathise with them as I think I will be unintelligible in a foreign country as well. Anyway, unless the professor is a truly mean one, you can always make a mark at the notes and ask them later. Or email! In some cases however, I do not even know what I don't know because it was so convoluted.
Hello all. I had the same problem following lectures because of the accent or werid enouciation of words by some of the lecturers. To make matters worst, some of the lecturers speak very softly and monotonous throughout the lecture. Fortunately, we were given notes and whole list of references so that we can hit the books to find answers to our querries. It will be really terrible if we need to copy down everything that the lecturers said during lectures.
ReplyDeleteI too am able to relate to this situation that you described being unable to understand the lecturer. Many times my interest for a module dwindled when I could not understand what the lecturer was saying because of his accent and lagged behind in the lectures. I think your post is well related to your personal experiences where you talk about examples in your life where bad communication caused misery. But there is a part where you talked about being vice-chairperson and bad communication caused conflicts, maybe if you could elaborate more on it, it would bring more depth instead of just touch and go. Same goes for the part where you talked about how President Obama influenced people with his outstanding communication skills, I think if you could elaborate more it would be an even more interesting and convincing post (not that its not one now). Hope i didn't upset you with the comments, no harm intended! =)
ReplyDeleteI always thought I was the only one not to understand the lecturers. I think this form part of being an international student, you have to adapt to the local way of how things are being done or else you will always lack behind. In my first year it was difficult but now I have got used to it.
ReplyDeleteMr Brad: Punctuation has always been problem for me. I'll surely work on the stuff you told me about and hope my future posts will be better
Candice: I do not get upset so easily...haha...Concerning the part when I mentioned being Vice-Chairperson, it was not about the accent of the people or whatsoever, it was only that members of the committee were not communicating enough whenever we organised an event. They did not share their idea enough whenever meetings were held and this led to conflicts among them whenever things do not turn out correctly. Therefore my suggestion to them was to better communicate with one another so that these do not happen again...As for the example of President Obama, I would say that for a leader to be vey good, he should possess the communication skills so that people can understand what changes he is trying to make and better understand them. It is same for the lectures, you must have known Ms Christina Lim from our department, the way she communicates is very good and this encourages more students to go for her lectures...Hope that these explanations clears your doubt