Reflection on Learning

Given that I am in my final year of University education, I found that being exposed to the following 3 aspects has indeed prepared me for an interview in the near future.

1. Peer Teaching
• Effective application letters & resumes
• Preparing for and Performing at Interviews
2. Mock Interview

The peer teaching session on effective application letter and resumes provide me with an aspect which I was not aware of. Initially, I was unsure about the purpose of an application letter and the potential effect it could help and hence most of the time, did not create any during job applications. In those rare occasions where I did create one, it was usually adapted from simple cover letters which i realized now, had no impact on the Recruitment Manager who may be looking at it. 

After the peer teaching, I became aware of the importance of application letters and actively seek ways to improve on my application letter so as to enhance my chances of attaining an interview in job vacancies which I have applied for or intend to apply in December. The teaching session was informative and provided me with information on how write a good application letter. I am glad that I have learnt how to write an effective application letter which will benefit me in attaining an interview.

Although I have been to a few job interviews, I did not make it a point to research for ways on how to perform well in an interview because I was not sure of what exactly to say or expect. However, being in the group to teach about preparing for and performing at interviews, I was exposed to a huge amount of information via research by the group, which provided me with information I thought, was not that readily available. Those information, during the preparation of the peer teaching sessions, was ingrained into me and now, I understand that preparing for an interview is not that simple as doing it a day before but it should be done across a minimal of a few days.

As I am intending to venture into the hotel industry, having a mock interview, was essential for me as I was not sure of what questions will be directed to me. Nevertheless, I prepared the interview with questions which I believe would be asked by my "interviewers" during the mock interviews. While the questions asked during the interview were surprising, I was aware that the questions could get tougher in an actual interview and believe that it was an enriching experience for me. And since I was prepared for the interview, I was able to connect my prepared answers to tailor an answer for questions being asked by the interviewers. From this experience, I found that being prepared for tough questions can go a long way in enhancing my performance in an interview.

Overall, this module is fun and interesting and I am glad to have taken it and forged new friendships with my friends and tutor. (:

Reflection on Oral Presentation

The week of oral presentation could be said to be one of my busiest week of the semester as I have 3 other presentations and a project submission happening on the same week.

Overall, I believe that my oral presentation was good but of course, there are some improvements which I can work on to further improve on the preparation and execution of the presentation.

I believe what I have done well was to prepare my slides in advance such that I have a clear understanding and direction on how I would conduct my presentation. The flow of the presentation was also structured intentionally to resemble to that of the proposal such that anybody who has read the final project proposal could associate with the information easily.

Placement and use of visuals on slides was something which I believe was effective because visuals are able to direct important information to the points which i wanted to bring across to the audience. Although my slides were not wordy, I believe with my visuals, my audience would be able to retain the information more effectively.

With regards to delivery, I believe I have done well in engagement as I maintained sufficient eye contact with "Ms Lim" and share the eye contact with the rest of the class too. Furthermore, I attempted to deliver information about the benefits, challenges, feasibility of our Scheme in an intuitive flow such that the audience is able to relate and understand the information which was being presented to them.

As to preparation of the presentation, I believe I could have done better. Although the slides require minimal work, I believe putting in more effort may have resulted in a more "tailored" slides for "Ms Lim". Additionally, the script for the presentation was done a day before the presentation. What could have been done would be to prepare the slides and the script once the project proposal is finalized so that in case of a busy week ahead like what happened, I have sufficient to prepare a better presentation.