Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Reflections on Oral Presentation


For this assignment, we were tasked to present our ideas and solutions to address a problem to people with authority. My group mates and I had a difficult time choosing a problem to address because the problem should not be too large for us to research on in the short time we have. The way in which we narrowed down to the issue of the lack of suicide awareness was very interesting. It was World Suicide Prevention Day that our group met to decide on the topic. However, the fact that only one group member knew this, and wore yellow in conjunction with it, speaks volumes about the awareness level we have regarding suicide. So, lo and behold, we’ve got a problem here!

Each of us viewed this topic very differently. In fact, when we spoke to Dr. Radhika about our topic, [I think] she thought the solutions we have is to reduce suicide rates in NUS. Conversely, our solutions were to tackle the negative perceptions towards suicide and counselling so that people would be more open to talk about it, and thereby, would not consider suicide at all. Some of us viewed the solutions as one main solution branched out into various parts, while the others thought they were three separate solutions. We soon came to a consensus that the former view would be easier to understand and present. The fact that we had no major disagreements was amazing, making it easier for us all to work on the chosen topic.
Our group comprised of members from different countries, namely Singapore, India, and Sri Lanka. Nonetheless, we all managed to understand one another well, and sought to clarify our doubts politely if we had any. I felt the passion we had for this project, the belief in each of us that we have chosen an attention-grabbing topic to work on. The language has never been a barrier in our meetings; neither has the differences in culture. It’s like we have a common ground, on which we all connect.

To Shiying, Dinesh and Uthpala, working with you people has been a wonderful experience for me.
 

Shameem Khan

 

2 comments:

  1. Hi Shameem
    The way we chose the topic is actually very interesting.The evening of September 10 is a day I cannot forget as we had a
    radical shift from the previous topics we were considering to suicide awareness.
    And I think we did a good job in it.And the fact that a model similar to our solution has been adopted in science faculty shows that our soultion is quite good.

    It was great working with you!
    Cheers,
    Dinesh

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  2. Hello Shameem,

    Yes, I've enjoyed working with you and the other two guys ! Coincidentally we are from the same JCs too! And I am glad that we all communicate with one another well throughout the whole project ! :)
    All the best to you and see you around in school before I officially graduate next year!

    Cheers,
    Shiying

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