Reflection on Team Project

The first lesson I have learned from this project is that, even after three years of study here, I am still not that familiar with the local culture. I was indeed surprised when Diana brought up this topic because I had never expected drinking to be a problem at all in Singapore. To be honest, prior to this project, Clarke Quay to me was just the name of another MRT station! I have to criticize myself here. I am that kind of person who never walk outside my room, if not 100% necessary. I have been lazy sitting in front of my screen all the time, and my major in computer science is not an excuse. From this project I learned a deeper side of this country, and I am happy to come up with a concrete proposal to improve the state of drinking together with my teammates.

What is more, I gained an invaluable experience working in a team with each team member from a different culture background. Diana showed an incredible accountability to our project. She spent tremendous amount of effort that both KwangYoung and me appreciated. I was in charge of the background part in the proposal. However, Diana found it unqualified and she basically rephrased everything. The amended paragraphs are far more professional than the original one. KwangYoung was actually able to communicate well in English. When I first came to Singapore, I could barely even understand what people were saying, let alone my lectures full of technical terms. I believe he has no difficulty catching up his architecture classes here. What impressed me the most is his ability to make use of knowledge learned from class. He suggested me to remove long sentences and add "attention getters" in my slides, which makes a presentation more efficient in terms of message conveying.

From this project, I have also learned various techniques that I can incorporate into my future work. For example, when dealing with new issues that are very specific, such as the 3 a.m. rule, there probably will not be too much existing information we can make use of. The only way to analyze them and propose constructive solutions is to conduct primary research from scratch on our own. Another interesting knowledge is that, making keynotes is far trickier than just copying over contents. They are not lecture notes on which everything needs to be in extreme details. We have to carefully choose the words, fonts and colors so that audients can focus on what we say, instead of what is on the screen.

In a nut shell, this team project is one of the most beneficial project during my undergraduate study. I have never realized the importance of effective communication before. I really enjoy the whole process of learning, discussing, analyzing and presenting. I firmly believe that this experience will benefit me in my future career.