Self Introduction

Dear Professor Brad,

My name is Yunhuang (YH) Wu, a Year 1 civil engineering student of yours in Singapore Institute of Technology. I graduated from Singapore Polytechnic with a diploma in civil engineering with business. Civil engineering is definitely my main interest. This is why I came back to school for my second degree as I had already pursued degree in construction management from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.

Before I joined the school in September 2020, I had 7 years of working experience as a assistant project engineer. I realised there is a need to have a degree in civil engineering in order to become a professional engineer. In addition, effective communication skill plays an important role in the work industry. It helps engineers to explain of their design so as to convince their superiors.

Effective communication is not simply to express my thoughts but to achieve goals after communicating with others. Sometimes it requires me to put myself into other shoes before I speak. Generally, I am a good listener and I believe it is the strength when it comes to communication. For example, I took note of comments from judges during other’s presentation and it helped me with my presentation and won the prize. On the other hand, having poor grammar affects me in expressing my thoughts, especially in writing. I always have the concern that my recipients are unable to understand my letters/emails completely and I am eager to confirm with them through verbally. Therefore, I hope to improve in writing at the end of this module.

Playing badminton is my hobby since secondary school. It is always a joy to meet friends who have the same interest on court and I am excited to play for school or company. It allows me to reflect in myself from the games year after another. It is important to win a game but more important to learn from mistakes and improve myself. In other words, it helps me improve as an individual.

 

Regards,

YH Wu

Group 6

Comments

  1. Brad BlackstoneJanuary 22, 2021 at 10:57 AM

    Thanks, YH. I appreciate you having written the letter and posting it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Darren HoJanuary 25, 2021 at 9:07 PM

    Dear Yunhuang,

    Your letter was courteous, clear and concise. Although your letter is well organized, there are still some grammatical errors.

    For example, in your 3rd paragraph, the first line. "Effective communication is not simply to express my thoughts but to achieve goals after communicate with others, sometimes it requires me to put myself into other shoes before I speak." I felt that it should be "Effective communication is not simply to express my thoughts but to achieve goals after communicating with others, sometimes it requires me to put myself into other shoes before I speak."

    Cheers,
    Darren

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. YunhuangJanuary 28, 2021 at 10:14 PM

      Hi Darren,

      Thanks for your time and the comment. Agree with you that it should be "communicating" in the third paragraph. Appreciate for highlighting it.


      Regards,
      YH Wu

      Delete
  3. Brad BlackstoneJanuary 30, 2021 at 8:34 PM

    Dear YH,

    Thank you for your patience, and apologies for the late review.

    Your letter addresses the paramaters of the assignment. I'm happy to learn quite a bit about you. You do mention that you have a degree already. Where did you obtain that from? How long have you been in the industry? What did your work entail? Why did you feel the need for further education? You don't need to address each of these, but a little more info would enhance this effort.

    Whatever the case, you can certainly act as a mentor for our younger, less experienced students. I look forward to your active participation in class.

    I do appreciate you mentioning in the letter your strength and weakness in communication. I'm glad that you see value in upscaling your skills. Let's start that by looking at the language use in this post:

    1. grammatical issues/sentence structure
    -- Civil engineering is definitely my main interest, this is why I come back to school for my second Degree as I had already pursued Degree in Construction Management. > (comma splice/verb tense/overuse of caps)
    >
    Civil engineering is definitely my main interest. This is why I came back to school for my second degree as I had already pursued a degree in construction management.

    -- In addition, effective communication skill plays an important role in the work industry, it helps engineers to explain of their design so as to convince their bosses/clients. (comma splice)
    > ?

    -- Effective communication is not simply to express my thoughts but to achieve goals after communicate with others, sometimes it requires me to put myself into other shoes before I speak.
    > (word form -- communicating rather than communicate -- and the comma splice)

    -- ...when comes to communication. > (fragment)

    -- ...and eager to confirm with them through verbally. > (sentence structure: Who is eager?)
    ...and I am eager to confirm with them through verbally.

    -- It is always a joy to meet friends who have the same interest on court and excited to play for school/company. >. (sentence structure: Who is excited?) ?

    -- It allows me to reflect in myself from the games year after another, it is important to win a game but more important to learn from mistakes and improve myself. >. (comma splice) ?

    -- it helps me to be a better self. > (wrong word)

    I'd be happy to explain further after class.

    I look forward to seeing how you polish this.

    Best wishes,

    Brad

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. YunhuangFebruary 1, 2021 at 10:04 PM

      Dear Prof Brad,

      You are most welcome as I understand that you have lots of many students to comment on.

      Thank you and appreciate for the invaluable feedback, I will make the necessary amendments and continue to improve on my writings.

      Last but not least, I'll be happy to stay back after class to hear more explanation from you.


      Regards,
      YH Wu

      Delete
  4. Amos BianJanuary 31, 2021 at 11:22 PM

    Dear YH,

    Thank you for the letter. I enjoy reading it. Your letter covers most of the requirements for this assignment. I am impress by the fact that you find a need to have a second degree despite having one.

    I like your explanations the strength and weaknesses. It is fairly concrete and it allows me understand better in where you excel as a teammate in the near future.

    However, there is a few areas where i would like to point out:
    - I realized it is a need to have Degree (second paragraph) ( Perhaps replacing "it" with "there" and "Degree" with "a degree" might sound better)
    - important role in the work industry, it helps engineers (second paragraph) ( ",and it helps engineers" there is a need for coordinating conjunctions to avoid comma splice if you intend to link both sentence together)
    -after communicate with others, sometimes it requires (Third paragraph) ( Coordinating conjunctions require to prevent comma splice if there is the intention to link the sentence)

    Overall, your letter is fairly concrete and it allows me to understand you better. Although, I do want to know more about what makes you more unique or different as a person compared to others.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. YunhuangFebruary 1, 2021 at 9:56 PM

      Hi Amos,

      I am glad you have enjoyed reading it. Thank you and appreciate for your comments. I will make the necessary amendments and continue to improve for my future writings.


      Regards,
      YH Wu

      Delete
  5. CaydenFebruary 1, 2021 at 9:07 PM

    Hello Yun Huang,

    I really enjoyed reading your letter as it gives me an insight of you as a person. I love your willingness to improve as a person due to the fact that you are willing to pursue a second degree.

    Your letter is fairly clear but there are a few areas I feel that can be improved:

    "it helps me to be a better self" - can be changed to "It helped me improve as an individual"

    "In addition, effective communication skill plays an important role in the work industry, it helps engineers to explain of their design so as to convince their bosses/clients." - can be changed to "To be proficient in effective communication will aid greatly in conveying information to your superiors"

    I look forward to your future writings.

    Regards,
    Cayden

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. YunhuangFebruary 1, 2021 at 9:58 PM

      Hi Cayden,

      I am glad you have enjoyed reading it. Thanks and appreciate for your comments. I will make the necessary amendments and continue to improve for my future writings.


      Regards,
      YH Wu

      Delete
  6. Aasiq AhamedFebruary 5, 2021 at 3:29 AM

    Dear Yunhuang,

    I enjoyed reading your introductory letter and I feel like I know you better now. I admire your passion and interest in civil engineering that you even pursued another degree in it.

    Here are some of my feedbacks: in paragraph 2, first sentence, you don’t need to include the word experience. Maybe you can say “During the few years of working before commencing on studies in September 2020,”.
    There’s also a typo error of missing out “it” before “comes to communication” in paragraph 3.
    There is also another typo at the last paragraph, missing out “not” before “important to win a game”.

    Looking at the brighter side, I am amazed by how detailed you were in your letter. There were some mistakes here and there but we are here to help one another!

    Cheers,
    Aasiq

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. YunhuangFebruary 8, 2021 at 10:06 PM

      Hi Aasip,

      Thank you and appreciate for your comments. I will make the necessary amendments and continue to improve for my future writings.


      Regards,
      YH Wu

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reader Response Draft 2 (Self-Healing Concrete)

In the article, “The Self-Healing Concrete That Can Fix Its Own Cracks,” Spinks (2015) stated that Hendrik Jonkers   created self-healing concrete innovation to “decrease the amount of new concrete produced, lower maintenance and repair costs for city officials, building owners and home-owners ” by inlaying self-activating limestone-producing bacteria into the concrete. The self-healing concrete has a longevity of up to 200 years and helps to reduce carbon emitters. However, the concrete can only repair up to 0.8mm wide of cracks and cost €30 per metre cube more than normal concrete. According to Alker, who is director of policy at the UK Green Building Council believes that it will be hard to convince the industry to adopt the new innovation. It will take unconventional consumers and developers who are willing to test their building with the new concrete to demonstrate positive results before others will support. Jonker has also been experimenting across the world where he claims that
Read more
  The Importance of communication skills for engineers “I contend that we (engineers) are undervalued because of our widespread inability to explain what we do to the general public (and why it is so important). It is one of the hardest goals to accomplish, to be able to boil down difficult concepts into a short and easily understood presentation or elevator pitch.” Marybeth Miceli, President, Miceli Infrastructure Consulting, USA (2011) Our opinion: The work that an engineer goes through is usually very complicated, it requires years of experience on the specific field to truly understand it. Which makes it very challenging for us to explain the difficult concept in engineering through words that can be easily understood by the public. Therefore, this caused the public not able to completely understand the importance and work done by engineers, which led them to neglect   the hard work that is done by engineers..
Read more