1. THOUGHTS ON THE QUOTE PICKED DURING THE FIRST LESSON 02/09

 “Without clear lines of communication, our ideas would stay within our own small development teams instead of becoming mature products. While this is obvious to those of us who have become experienced engineers, the real question is: Why is it lost to us when we are engineering students?”

~ Akbar R Khan, Software Systems Engineer, USA, “Good Communication Is Essential...” (2014)

In my opinion...

  • As engineering students, the quote resonates with us really well. Akbar delivered a really short yet sharp and concise message with the quote. It shows the transition in communication ability from engineering students to experienced engineers. From this we can infer that communication skills amongst engineers is developed with time and experience.

  • Based on our experiences, most of the lessons in school were theoretical. Although hard skills such as math and physics are beneficial to us during tests/work that requires calculations. Soft skills like interpersonal communication cannot be taught, as it must be cultivated through repeated practice.

  • We are thankful that in polytechnics (as well as in SIT) we were introduced to multiple interdisciplinary modules which shed some light on communication essentials.

  • Having a blend of normal theoretical engineering modules and interdisciplinary modules enabled students to be able to better communicate their designs/proposals in projects. With a broadened perspective, engineers are able to convey their ideas and thoughts through different means of communication such as verbal, non-verbal and visual aids.

Comments

  1. Xuan YiSeptember 4, 2024 at 11:47 PM

    I completely agree with all four of the points you made. Individuals will grow as engineers as they gain experience. and through some modules that we learned at Polytechnic and SIT, we were able to communicate using the points you mentioned. Verbal, nonverbal, and visual aids.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Brad BlackstoneSeptember 6, 2024 at 7:59 PM

    Thanks for this highly detailed and insightful explanation, Krissh.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2. FORMAL INTRODUCTORY LETTER

Dear Sir Brad, I am writing this letter to introduce myself formally to you and even my classmates who might be reading this letter in the coming weeks. I am Krissh, a mechanical engineering undergraduate at SIT and I am from the class, T20 in the critical thinking and communicating module. Previously, I attained a diploma in aerospace engineering at Ngee Ann Polytechnic after which I served the nation for 2 years in the army. As a child, I was often intrigued by how things worked. Growing up, I watched television channels such as Discovery Channel and National Geographic instead of cartoons. I was often amazed by how things worked, especially airplanes! I enjoyed learning math and science related subjects compared to other subjects. However, it was only in polytechnic where I found out that learning engineering is heavy in math and science. In secondary school, I was a member in Singapore Youth Flying Club (SYFC). Being part of SYFC, I gained a huge liking for aircraft and technol...
Read more

9. CRITICAL REFLECTION

Module learning: Some of the goals I had set for myself at the beginning of the course were to be able to produce be a better writer and to learn to be more creative in terms of thinking. I believe that I have made improvement with respect to my initial goals, however, I can do even better with time. Afterall, the end of this course should not mark the end of learning and improving. As for how I managed to work towards my goals during the length of this course, I did the following: I tried to focus during lessons and absorb as much as I could, I tried to be clear of the requirements of each lesson and of the tasks at hand. From doing so, I believe I absorbed more than I otherwise would if I were to go to classes on an “autopilot” mode. The first assignment on the reader response allowed me to put the lessons learnt in class to good use. I learnt about the Paul Elder Framework, having good transitions between sentences and paragraphs and relearnt how to cite sources. I strongly believ...
Read more