Subject: Self-Introduction
Dear Professor Blackstone,
My name is Tan How Wei, and I am writing to you
to introduce myself as one of your students in your effective communication
classes. I am currently in Sustainable Infrastructure Engineering (Building
Services).
I had graduated with Diploma in Environmental
Management and Water Technology from Singapore Polytechnic. Despite the name of
the course and the school it belonged in, this diploma had a lot of engineering
in it— which was a plus-point for me, given that my unwavering interest in
engineering was able to further nurture.
My lack of access to any personal digital devices
up till the age of 13 meant that I used most of my indoor-time completely
exhausting the encyclopaedia collection my family had at home. Through the
encyclopaedia, my eyes were opened to how much in the world there is to
know.
Back then, even though I did not have the
capacity to understand the complex calculations and design behind the feats of
engineering I had read about, I was able to appreciate their beauty. Coupled
along with how my father always had me beside him when dismantling and fixing
appliances, the young me began to see the world in a wonderful light. Every
single thing that we use was once a mere drifting idea in someone's
head; he/she had the knowledge to and decided to make it real, and now we can
enjoy the fruits of his/her labour. I want that. I want to make something out
of nothing.
This need for knowledge was what drove me to seek
an undergraduate degree in engineering. In my workplace prior to university, I
did not have enough technical knowledge to contribute to issues and problems we
met at work. The engineers would discuss and reach a conclusion, which I would
then simply execute what they had agreed on. Sometimes these solutions had my
morals screaming "No" at the top of their lungs. However, without the
technical knowledge, I can only agree instead of rebut. Also, as "ground-men" working while
physically on-site, we always spot holes in solutions. We sometimes had ideas
to patch these holes, but we never ever had the technical knowledge to know
whether they were simply empty ideas or feasible answers.
One communication strength that I believe I have,
is how I do not usually feel too anxious to present my ideas to strangers. In
fact, it excites me to be able to share something in my head to a completely
separate being. People have told me that they liked how I explain things at
their basic levels. There is a Reddit subreddit called r/explainlikeimfive. It
encompasses how I like to explain the concepts I am explaining. The best
explanations are ones that can be understood by those with no technical
knowledge. (Children are the best audience because they literally know nothing,
and they almost always hunger to know more.)
My weakness in communication is definitely how,
in my excitement, I can easily go off-tangent when explaining something.(evidently
in this "letter") I tend to assume that everyone has the same
hunger for (irrelevant) details as me, only to eventually notice their lifeless
eyes when my spoken words enter their head and they cannot find it any less
boring. Sometimes, even though I feel that concepts only make sense when they
come together in a set, most of the time, people only need precise details.
Most hiccups that I encounter in my presentations(and even conversations)
are me trying to filter my explanations on-the-spot. Since most presentations
are timed, I have to really shave the extra details. It is like having an
amazing Rube Goldberg machine, but being restricted to only displaying one small
part of it.
My goal for this module is to learn to be able to
effectively filter out unnecessary details in my long-winded communication
style. It has also been quite a long time since I had to present information in
a formal setting, especially to people with similar/superior education. I will
need to regain the ability to choose an appropriate tone of presentation,
hopefully through practice while learning in this module.
Under your guidance, I hope I will be much better
at effective communication. I really look forward to our
upcoming lessons together with the rest of my group.
Yours sincerely,
Tan How Wei
SIE2016 Tutorial Group 5
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