Derius's blog

Subject: Introductory to my psyche  Dear Prof Blackstone,   I am writing this letter to introduce myself outside the confines of the four corners. My name is Derius Khoo, pronounced as 'De-rius' but everyone just calls me 'Day-rius'. I am currently a Year 1 Mechanical Engineering student enrolled in your Critical Thinking and Communicating module.    I graduated from Ngee Ann polytechnic in 2022 with a diploma in Mechanical Engineering and ITE(HQ) in 2019 with a Higher Nitec certification in Engineering with Business. During my higher education, I  have realized my weakness in the leadership faculty. Therefore, I have decided the only way to see improvements is to step out of the boundaries I have confined myself in. A leap of faith, as they call it. That first small leap landed me in Student Council during my Higher Nitec studies where I did outreach events such as Freshmen Orientation Camps, Student Council Induction Camps and a few notable activities. Events ...

 “Without clear lines of communication, our ideas would stay within our own small development teams instead of becoming mature products. While this is obvious to those of us who have become experienced engineers, the real question is: Why is it lost to us when we are engineering students?” Akbar R Khan, Software Systems Engineer, USA, “Good Communication Is Essential...” (2014) I think... As engineering students, the quote really resonates with me really well. Akbar delivered a really short yet sharp and concise message with the quote. It shows the transition in communication ability from engineering students to experienced engineers. From this we can infer that communication skills amongst engineers is developed with time and experience. Based on our experiences, most of the lessons were theoretical. Although hard skills such as math and physics are beneficial to us during tests/work that requires calculations, not much calculations will be realistically conveyed via communic...