Oral Presentation

I believe many of my classmates, including myself, wondered why was there a need to include a communication module in an engineering degree programme. I realized that it wasn't all about completing the assignments given and getting a grade but, learning different etiquette and acquiring life skills which would be useful in the future.

For the last assignment, we were tasked to come up with solutions to improve existing problems or current situations. Our group came up with a mobile application to tackle the issue of overcrowding in food courts. A technical report was also required to illustrate our ideas and research done on this topic area. It was something relatively new to all of us as we did not do up a technical report with sections like executive summary, letter of transmittal etc. This posed as a challenge to me as I had to adhere to the different formats given for the different sections. It was particularly difficult for me to write persuasively to convince the intended audience of the mobile application. I had to research and find credible sources to support my points.

However, that was not the only difficulty that I had encountered while completing this assignment. I had to work on my presentation skills to deliver the content confidently so that I would be able to grasp the attention of the audience. I had troubles making a link of the content from one slide to the next as I could not find the appropriate connectors or phrases while practising for the presentation. It was rather depressing to not be able to deliver the content smoothly despite having past experiences of presenting projects to professionals or lecturers in my polytechnic education.

Thankfully, I had the help of my classmates who gave me timely feedback and comments on my delivery. Their comments were of great help to me as I was able to reflect on the tone and words used while presenting. Besides my delivery, my group mates were very patient and helpful towards one another as we spent time going through each section of the report to ensure that the content was of relevance to the topic area and in depth research was done to justify our points.

I felt that my team had put up a great presentation that day and I really owe the success of my presentation to my classmates. Through this assignment, I learnt that forging a strong bond between people plays an important role in many aspects of my university life. I am able to complete this assignment with the help of not only my group mates but also the other classmates who were willing to spend their time and effort to help me to improve myself. I believe that with this bond, we will be able to help and influence one another positively.