Showcase

A piece that best reflect my skills and development as an effective communicator is shown in the technical report that I have written about autonomous vehicle (AV) technology. I have chosen this piece since it allowed me to communicate my thoughts and opinions about AV from a professional to a more general university level perspective. It allowed me to showcase my written and technical communication skills. A wide variety of skills was needed to effectively succeed in writing this technical report. It needed solid written and reading communication skills, a strong technical mindset, and the ability to write clearly and concisely for my intended audience. All which I believe were skills that I obtained and have improved over the course of writing the report. Writing the technical report allowed me to push myself to break through what I thought was my limits in writing effectively. It pushed me out of my comfort zone as it is my first time writing a full fledged and complete technical report. A technical report is something I had no prior experience doing. But I have experience reading other people’s reports and journals which helped me a lot. Finding scholarly and peer-reviewed journals and articles that support and talk about my chosen topic was an experience that was new and refreshing for me. Effectively communicating a professional’s thoughts and ideas on a topic to an audience that know nothing about said topic was a challenge for me. Which I believe I was able to do well. I can proudly say that this piece is one of my best works. At first, the thought of writing a technical report scared me. But as I went through each stage in writing it, from finding journals and articles to writing my ideas and incorporating the knowledge I have read brought me a sense of satisfaction. I worked hard on this report and after writing it there are still things that I could improve on. I realized what things I could have done and changed. And now, I am looking forward to another experience in writing a technical report about a topic that I am interested and passionate about.

Another piece that shows my skills and development as an effective communicator is the infographic brochure I have made about autonomous vehicles. I have chosen the infographic brochure since it was about how effective I am in getting people’s attention and conveying my thoughts and ideas in an easily digestible format. The brochure made use of my skills and knowledge in effective visual communications. The main idea is to present ideas and information for an audience visually with as little text as much as possible. To achieve this, I made use of images, shapes, colors, and other visual elements to catch my audience’s attention which also helped in reducing the amount of text used. Carefully choosing which information to include to explain everything that is needed to know about autonomous vehicles while not leaving out too much is vital. As putting too much can congest the brochure and leaving too much will make it lacking. Making a brochure is something that is within my comfort zone. I have made a couple of brochures for different topics before. Since I have experience making brochures, this was a comfortable piece that allowed me to make use of my visual skills. I feel that with brochures and infographics I have found my solid way and style of making them. With each one I make it shows what elements work and what doesn’t. This piece in my opinion is one of my best works. I believe that visual and written skills is one of my best cards in my arsenal. I have a decent amount of experience making these and with each one I am improving and getting better. One thing that I would like to improve on and get better at is making infographics and brochure that is intended for a professional level. I have a great general idea for a beginner or peer-level audience, but I struggle when it comes to professionals. So, this is an area of improvement for future works.

A piece that I have also done that shows my skills and development as a communicator is the mock job interview. I have chosen the mock job interview as another piece that showcases my skills since it was about preparing and improving my verbal communication skills. It needed me to prepare for potential interview questions. Preparing for it also allowed me the dos and don’ts in job interviews like do prepare for it, be professional, be punctual, and maintaining eye contact. The job interview showed how lackluster my verbal and oral communication skills are. But this also meant that there are still lots of area that I could improve on. It made me aware of how lacking I am at verbally communicating my thoughts and ideas. I stutter quite often, use filler words (e.g., uhm), lack of though organization, and so on were some of the things I noticed in my verbal communication that needs a lot of work on. The job interview really pushed me out of my comfort zone. I don’t feel comfortable doing verbal pieces since I know to myself that my verbal skills are the worst as I get all nervous and anxious. But this won’t stop me from improving and getting better. I constantly try to be a better verbal communicator and practice and getting used to it is the best way to improve. This piece that I did is not my best work. Verbal communication is a skill that takes time and practice to improve and get better at. The few weeks of preparation and practice I did is not enough and does not make me feel satisfied and proud of my performance during the mock interview. I will keep on practicing and preparing so that when the real interview comes, I could be proud of my efforts.

A long-term team project that I have worked on for my mini-design 1 course showcases multiple areas of my skills and development as an effective communicator. In the course team project, we were tasked to create and build our very own electric motor go-kart using resources provided by the class and using 3D CAD printed parts that we have designed. I have chosen this piece because throughout the duration of the project, I had to use my written skills for writing multiple reports for each stage of the design process and my verbal skills in effectively communicating with my team members and TAs. The project was dissected into stages and each one required us to communicate our thought process and idea as to why we have chosen such designs for our kart. We had to effectively explain in our reports why a certain part was designed that way, logic behind the choice of wheel design, thought process for our gearbox design, and more reasons about each and every decision we have made regarding the go-kart design. Me and my team members would often have meetings to talk about the design process. Making sure that I contribute and effectively communicate my design ideas and what I think would make us succeed. This also means the technical knowledge to make sure that our ideas would translate effectively to the go-kart performance. This piece is well within my comfort zone. It was something that I was really interested in and enjoyed doing. I felt at ease sharing my thoughts and ideas to other group members. Communicating with them was not hard and was easy to work with. Writing the report was not a struggle as we had multiple people we could bounce ideas with. Overall, this was a very great experience. I learned a lot of stuff regarding design and communications. This project is one of the best works I was involved in. From beginning to end our group had a solid idea of what we wanted to do. Along the way we made adjustments to be successful and each step of the process was joyful and fulfilling. The final go-kart product turned out brilliantly and couldn’t have been any happier. I am now looking forward to similar projects in the future.