From a Communicator, to a Professional Communicator
Saturday 10 November 2012
It is always the saddest moment to end a module in which you have learnt much from the course as well as fostered many friendships with the classmates. 

I started this semester choosing ES2007S as one of my modules because of the following reasons:

  1. ES2007S is different from my Statistics core modules which I thought I hope I can do better as compared to the difficult cores modules. 
  2. ES2007S will be teaching us the essential skills which would be important when we step out to the working world. 
  3. I do not want to graduate from university with only the textbook’s knowledge, but without any improvement in interpersonal skills.
At the start of the module, I constantly reminded myself to open up more and be more active in class discussion (I hope I did). Through various class discussions, it developed our critical thinking as well as to interact more with our classmates. From the blog posts, I have tried to refine my writings and hope that it will improve as the course progresses. Peer teaching and proposal writing have also given me several learning pointers such as the different ways of presenting and also to work well as a team to obtain the aim. Without the communication between the group mates, nothing is achievable. Finally, at the final oral presentation, my group chose took a risk by presenting without any visual aids and we make it appealing to the audiences. Through all these components of the course, as well as all the small activities, it all summed up and made me improve in terms of interpersonal communication as well as professional writing. The professional pointers will also be put to good use in the near future.

I am very thankful to Brad and my fellow classmates for all your advices and pointers throughout the course of this module. I hope I am no longer a socially “awkward turtle”, but now a professional communicator. (:
posted by yongsheng at 02:30 | Permalink | 16 comments
Reflection on Final Oral Presentation
The oral presentation is finally over! 

Giving presentation has always been my Achilles heel since junior college days as I am not born to be a good speaker. From peer teaching, the most insightful experience I had gained was the use of visual aids like PowerPoint slides which my team had prepared it so fantastically with mostly pictures and lesser of the words. However, when it comes to final oral presentation this time round, our group has wanted to do something different and we decided to discard all any visual aids. 

Our group managed to craft out the whole proposal with each of us having a deep understanding on almost all aspects of the topic we are handling. Therefore, we strongly believed that even without slides, we would be able to present to the various stakeholders our proposed solutions for we can be the presenters ourselves. We managed to fine tune our presentation and improve it to the best of our ability. Given the fact that it would be harder to get our ideas across to the stakeholders without the help of visual aids, the more we knew we need to present our proposed solutions such that it sounds extremely awesome and convincing for the stakeholders to buy our ideas. It was indeed the greatest challenge we had encountered so far. 

When my group mate was presenting, I was really nervous standing at the back and I can feel my hands trembling. I could even hear my heart pounding at a faster rate than the tickling of the clock. Personally, I do not think that I did well this time round. Although I knew all the stuff and I am fully aware of what I am presenting, the nervousness stepped in and caused me to stumble over words and also to speak at a faster pace than I planned to. On a brighter note, with the nodding of heads from the audiences such as Rohit, Bernard, Chadran and Shi Ying, and also the kind and heart-warming smile from Hui Yun, I managed to calm down with these acknowledgements. A big thank you to you all! J Overall, I am glad that my group’s presentation turned out fine and it did appeal to the audiences. 

Since the start of ES2007S, there are many different styles of presentations. To summarize, I believe that there shouldn’t be a fixed style of presenting. We should always tune and plan our presentation according to the agenda we have and also use the most suitable method to enable the audiences to capture the main ideas effectively. 

Click here for the video on our group's OP!
posted by yongsheng at 01:57 | Permalink | 12 comments
Evaluating Intercultural Behaviours
Saturday 6 October 2012
The intercultural scenario that you are about to read is one that describes a story of the seemingly unlikely union of two persons. They are my cousin and her husband.


As what most couples would say, it is not easy to maintain a marriage as it takes a lot of effort to overcome personal differences and to compromise each other. My cousin and her husband is an transnational couple in which one is born in Singapore and the other is born in Thailand. Putting language and skin color differences aside, they faced more inherent differences such as religious belief.

The main problem they faced is the continued disapproval from my uncle and auntie. They did not receive blessing from their relatives and friends, but instead, they faced criticisms and also received negative stereotypical comments about transnational relationship. Having born as a Buddhist and growing up in a Buddhism  family for the past 25years, my cousin is used to holding joss stick on many occasions. However, due to religious differences, my cousin’s husband is a Christian and is not allowed to touch the joss stick because of religious restrictions.  On the day of their wedding ceremony, they are supposed to pray and give thanks to god, my cousin kneeled down with the joss stick in her hands but the husband cannot hold joss stick. As a result, this caused numerous criticisms and the relatives have a bad impression of him.

But how did they manage to establish a relationship that defies the general norms? Also, how did they manage to overcome the various religious, cultural and language barriers that could potentially tear them apart? 

Throughout the years, this couple have been through thick and thin together. The resistances they faced not only did not separate them but got them closer together as a happy couple. Without them being through all these, I wouldn’t even have realized that an transnational marriage was a big deal. Their love and support for each other has reaffirmed my faith that cultural and racial differences need not be a barrier to any relationship.
posted by yongsheng at 03:57 | Permalink | 8 comments
Application letter
Friday 14 September 2012
Blk 276 Choa Chu Kang Avenue 2
#09-303 Singapore 680276
(+65)96568966
leeyongsheng.90@gmail.com

10th September 2013

Mrs Jerusha Ang, Group Human Resource Director
Human Resource Division
JTC Corporation
The JTC Summit
8 Jurong Town Hall Road
Singapore 609434


Dear Mrs Jerusha, 

I am writing to seek career opportunities in the field of statistics. I am very interested in working at JTC Corporation, the position of a statistician in your organization. I truly hope that I can be working as a part of your team in conceiving developments in the national economic growth for the future. 

I will be graduating from National University of Singapore (NUS) in May 2014 with a Bachelor Degree in Science (Statistics). At NUS, I have developed a very unique education experience that has combined the theoretical and computational aspects of statistical studies. With these, I have learnt how to conduct good statistical surveys and produce accurate statistical analysis on data collected. I am also proficient with the use of statistical software prevalent in this field, particularly R, SAS and SPSS and also with software like Microsoft Office.

Being the vice-director of the Sports Committee in NUS Faculty of Science as well as the Company Sergeant Major in the Singapore Boys’ Brigade as my co-curricular activity in secondary school, I have developed a strong sense of leadership in terms of leading by example and giving clear instructions. Also, I was a player of the school badminton team in Junior College in which I have developed the quality of fighting spirit and effective teamwork. Having experiences in participating in both the uniform group and sports team, I am equipped with the ability not just to work independently for analytical work in statistics, but also to work in a team to solve problems. Furthermore, I have been giving private tuition for the past five years and I believe that balancing work with study has groomed me in becoming a person with good time management and organisational skills.

Thank you for considering my application. I would find the post of a statistician in your organization very worthwhile and challenging, and I hope to receive a favourably reply from you.

Yours sincerely,


Lee Yong Sheng
posted by yongsheng at 07:30 | Permalink | 4 comments
Resolving Interpersonal Conflict
Saturday 8 September 2012

There is a phrase which says “win a heart and lose a friend” and it clearly described the situation that I was in six years ago. 

In secondary school, I used to have a clique of close friends who would eat lunch and play basketball together at one of the courts near my house almost every day after school. Although life was mundane back then, we really enjoyed each other company. We liked a girl in our school, but none of them succeeded in winning over her heart. After O-Level examination, I went to Junior College (JC) and that girl went to the same JC as me. Coincidentally, we were in the same orientation group. Due to many close interactions, we eventually fell for each other and got into a relationship. 

One particular morning, my group of friends agreed to meet up for a game of basketball at the usual court which we used to play to reminisce all the happy moments we had. I was extremely excited and was looking forward to meet my old buddies. When I reached, I went around for a “fist bump” action with my friends like how we did last time. However, there was this friend A of mine walked away when I walked towards him. I was puzzled about why he ignored me as I am pretty sure he knew what I wanted to do. Later in the game, this Friend A pushed me intentionally when we were both anticipating for rebounds and he elbowed me simultaneously when I was bouncing the ball. I was really outraged by his actions. Someone told me that Friend A was pissed with me for getting together with my girlfriend whom he liked as well. I was so flabbergasted when I heard that. I thought he would have given me his blessing and I didn’t expect our friendship to be so vulnerable. 

A year later, I broke up with my girlfriend. Things got slightly better between Friend A and me but our relationship is no longer as close as before. Although each of us has our own girlfriend now, the feeling is still weird when we see each other. If you are me, what would you do to resolve this conflict?  
posted by yongsheng at 06:07 | Permalink | 8 comments