Self-Introduction

Dear Professor Blackstone,

This is my self-introduction writing about my personal experiences, weaknesses and strengths when comes to communication. First and foremost, I graduated from Republic Polytechnic with a diploma in environmental science and international business studies. As an alumnus from my previous tertiary institution, we had been taught on problem-based learning and to do daily presenting on findings, solutions or ideas. To excel in daily classes, we are expected to be proficient in our public speaking skills in all every diverse scenarios.

During my national service, I was a company platoon commander in a infantry battalion. Before and after every training, I am required to deliver speeches or instructions to my entire company. I’m happy to say that it has even enhanced my public speaking skills through delivering instructions to the men.

In addition, I was an actor during my secondary school days and other companies’ small firms to promote awareness to the public. I did receive a certificate for outstanding skit and character for the film I acted in.

From my past experiences, I’m confident to say that I am comfortable interacting with large audiences without much hesitation as I adapt into a character easily to create a positive response from the audiences.

On the other hand, my weakness would be reading and writing due to a bad learning experience I had. I may get anxious when reading long paragraphs and occasionally, thoughts would blank out and no information will be able to be processed through my brain. Thus, the only countermeasure I have learnt is to keep myself calm and read the content very slowly.

As for writing, I am bad with my grammar and am unable to identify my own sentence fragments. One possible reason was due to the habit I adopted by using Singlish to communicate with my families and friends. When it comes to writing, Singlish would seem all too natural to me even when I read it loud enough for me to listen to my own sentence.

Ultimately, the two goals I have set for myself to achieve is to improve my ability to read and understand information more accurately as a University Student, I am required to do lots of reading to progress through my studies while being able to draft out excellent writings in all aspect of formats to generate better articulation and expression in my upcoming projects reports.

Nonetheless, I’m delighted to have taken up Effective Communication as no matter which profession I’m in, communication is ultimately essential whether is it electronics or verbal communication. Nonetheless, I strongly believe that SIT will educate and groom me to become a better student before embarking on the journey as an Engineer. Hopefully to peruse my professional Interest to become a product engineer whom innovates ideas or products that will benefit the machines or structure by reduction the time needed to construct it and easy to utilize it.

Thank you, Professor Blackstone for taking your time and effort in reading my self-introduction.

Yours Sincerely,
Lewis Tan Ping Jin



SIE2017

edited - 11/09/2017
edited - 12/09/2017
edited -  13/09/2017

Read Blogs
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2) Shu Han
3) Chun Heng
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2) Shu Han
3) Chun Heng
4) Jickson

Comments

  1. Hi Lewis,

    Thank you for sharing more about yourself in this letter. It must have been tough to switch your field of study from a business course to an engineering course. Indeed army still has its benefits and definitely taught us things which we are not able to learn elsewhere. After reading through your letter, I have some pointers in my opinion:

    - In your first paragraph, "...our public speaking skills in all every diverse scenarios." I feel that the word "every" could be removed to make the sentence sound nicer.>>>(sentence structure)

    - In your second paragraph, "...that it has even enhanced..." Same as the precious point, the "even" could be removed.

    - In your seventh paragraph, "...I have set for myself to achieve is to improve..." In my opinion, I feel that "to achieve" could be removed as well such that the sentence is more concise and easier to understand.

    That is all that I spotted. Hope that it helps you in your English!

    Regards,
    Shawn

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dear Shawn,

      Thank you for your commenting on my blog post and i strongly agree that it is a strong culture shock for me. One thing i learnt in the military was to be adaptable in all situations and i believe with this daily mantra, it will aid me through the SIE (Land)course.

      Also thank you for spotting the English errors in my blog post as this will strongly benefit my learning towards becoming a good writer. Hope you find my comments insightful towards your learning.

      Yours Sincerely,
      Lewis

      Delete
  2. Hi Lewis,

    It is good to hear that you have had multiple experiences in public speaking prior to being in SIT, be it in army or secondary school, and even more so to see you putting it into practice in the classroom. I tend to face the same issue as you in terms of reading; Huge walls of text tend to make my mind wonder, resulting in not being able to get the message in my first reading.

    Regarding the your usage of the English language, here are some areas that I've noticed:

    -"On the other hand, my weakness would be reading and writing due to..."
    >You mentioned two weaknesses in this sentence, "weakness" should be in plural form.

    -"Ultimately, the two goals I have set for myself to achieve is to improve my ability to read and understand information..."
    >Similar to above (plurality)

    -Some words in towards the end are capitalised in the middle of the sentence.

    Other than that, your sentence structure is rather fluent and is easy to comprehend.

    Thanks for reading.

    Regards,
    Casey

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dear Casey,

      Thank you for commenting on my blog post and I'm really delighted to receive comments on how i can improve on my writing.

      From my understanding when comes to reading, it was due to my phobia I had in my past but we should not let it limit our full potential in learning. We could share with each other on methods or ways on how we can improve on our reading and analysis skills.

      Overall, thank you for taking your time to read my reply.

      Yours Sincerely,
      Lewis

      Delete
  3. Dear Lewis,

    Thank you for this highly detailed response to the assignment. You provide lots of fine supporting points as you describe your educational background and NS experience, and you elaborate with concrete detail as you describe your communication weaknesses and strengths. It seems especially impressive that you have had important leadership responsibilities as an NS platoon leader. I also note your successful acting experience. All of this should become relevant as we proceed with our project work. In addition, you may be a worthy candidate for emcee in our upcoming presentation showcase. (Would you consider that?)

    As for your language use in this post, there are a few issues to take note of:

    1) As an alumnus from my previous tertiary institution, we had been taught .... >>> (issue with numbers: an alum > we?)
    2) verb tense inconsistency
    -- To excel in daily classes, we are expected to be proficient in our public speaking skills in all every diverse scenarios.
    -- I was a company platoon commander in a infantry battalion. Before and after every training, I am required to deliver
    -- thoughts would blank out and no information will be able to be processed
    3) run on sentence
    -- Ultimately, the two goals I have set for myself to achieve is to improve my ability to read and understand information more accurately as a University Student, I am required to do lots of reading to progress through my studies while being able to draft out excellent writings in all aspect of formats to generate better articulation and expression in my upcoming projects reports.

    We will address all the issues you have mentioned in your goal setting.

    I look forward to working with you further this term.

    Brad

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dear Brad,

      I apologized for the late reply but honestly, I'm really grateful to receive a comment from you.

      Thank you for spotting my English errors and sharing your insights on how i can improve to become a better writer. With all honestly, it has really been awhile since i exercise my writing as for the past 2 years in the military, Singlish aided me in delivering better speech than proper English. I strongly believe for command of English it really takes practice and good habits to progress.

      With regards to the role of an emcee, I would love to take up this opportunity and share the possible experience with Momo since she was the emcee for her batch. Nonetheless, i would still require some practice to transit my conversation back into professional worker before going up on stage.

      Most importantly, I would like to thank you for considering me as an emcee for the upcoming presentation showcase and time to read my reply.

      Yours Sincerely,
      Lewis

      Delete

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