Clement's

As the module comes to an end, I am inclined to reflect on this learning journey of improving my communication skills. At the beginning of this module, I wrote a descriptive reflection addressed to Professor Blackstone mentioning a few of my strengths, weaknesses, and goal by the end of this module. My goal was to be able to project my voice better when speaking.     Throughout the module, I had various opportunities to speak in front of my peers through settings like presentations and in-class public readings. At first, it was a struggle to project my voice across the room as I was feeling insecure about the said shortcoming. Adding to this difficulty was the global pandemic that resulted in me needing to speak through a mask. However, through various feedbacks from Professor Blackstone and my peers, and persistence on my part, I can confidently say that my voice projection has improved significantly. Moving forward, I would like to involve myself in public speaking activitie...

Dincer, I., & Abu-Rayash, A. (2020).  District Cooling System . ScienceDirect.  https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/district-cooling-system   In this article, Dincer and Abu-Rayash (2020) fixate on the topic of the district cooling system. According to the authors, district cooling systems generate chilled water for multiple households as a “deliverable commodity exactly like water and electricity.” A centralized production containing multiple chillers are located underground to generate chilled water. Water pumps will then transport the chilled water to various households through a network of insulated pipes. The chilled water can either be transported directly to the building’s fan coils or interchanged with the building’s heat exchangers. This system removes the need for users to have personal air-conditioners and chillers, thus resulting in substantial energy and cost savings. The authors also mentioned that buildings employing the district cooling sy...

In the case study, “Preventing ‘Bus Bunching’ with Smart Phone Application Implementation,” Sprogis (n.d.) addressed the problem of ‘bus bunching’ in Watertown, MA (US), through the use of a smartphone application. In the article, the author inferred that public buses lost substantial productivity when they bunched together. To tackle the issue, Sprogis utilized AnyLogic's Geographic Information System (GIS) alongside data published by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) to run various simulations for possible solutions. He discovered that the solution named “equilibrium policy” showed the best results. The equilibrium policy emphasizes that busses keep a constant distance between themselves. Sprogis further stated that the equilibrium policy caused the wait time to be of a “more predictable distribution,” which removed unnecessarily long buffer times and “[dampened] overcrowding of buses.” He later proposed the MBTA to implement “’uber-fication’ of...

Dear Professor Blackstone,   My name is Clement Ten, from your effective communication class (T3). I am writing this letter in hopes that you will get to know me a little better. I graduated from Temasek Polytechnic with a diploma in clean energy engineering. Though I am currently pursuing my degree in sustainable infrastructure engineering, about two years ago, I had ambitions to study criminology due to my fascinations with problem-solving and analytical work. However, through much deliberation and wise counsel from friends and family, I thought it best to tread on a more familiar path.   One of the strengths that I have in communication is my ability to adapt to different communication styles according to my audience. As I was working in a café-bar as a barista two years ago, I had to converse with customers from different walks of life. During the day, the café-bar served cakes and tarts to casual coffee-loving customers; in the evening, we served main courses and wines to...

“While all engineers should have good communication skills, global engineers face additional challenges, making effective communication an imperative.” Debra Kraft, Careers Content Writer, Demand Media (2016)   Due to language barriers, global engineers are confronted with an additional challenge of communicating effectively across different cultures. This problem is harder than it seems due to the fact that languages are usually intertwined with culture. For the global engineer to communicate  effectively,  he has to go the extra mile to learn the language's unique sentence structures, grammar rules and even cultural slangs that are commonly used in its region. A simple example would be the difference in the way english is spoken in Singapore as compared to the original english language. Singaporeans' usage of "lah" and "lorh" have often confused other english speaking nationalities. This problem would be further compounded when the global engineer is requ...