Reflection for Oral Presentation (Digital Portfolio)

Nur Fatin Atiqah Binti Abdul Rahman

AH100600

Five minutes and then you go babbling until out of a sudden the time is up! Then you began to think back, what had you said in front of the audience? Had you really presented what is necessary? Or did you just stand in front and said it out loud word by word whatever you had written on the slide?

Five minutes and that's all. Not more than that. Quite difficult for me if you asked me.

Throughout my studies in UTM, I had never been given a specific time when it comes to presenting in front. Therefore, I (as well as the rest of my friends) would tend to present every single things that we had written on our slide. It will pretty much depending on how many slides do we have. If there is only few slides, then the time we need to present would be less compared to those who have more than 35 slides! (Just a random number by the way!).

Thus when it comes to this digital portfolio presentation, I am quite nervous. First, it may be due to the lack of preparation that I had as I am the person who are quite laid back when it comes to presentation and secondly, because I don't know what to talk in front of the class (okay, also due to the lack of preparation that I did)! So I was like, "Just go with the flow!" and pray hard that all will went well.

And it did went well! Very well, mind you.

(You noticed how when you just go with the flow and everything came out perfect in contrast to when you had spent hours trying to plan and prepare? Yep, life is like that.)

 So from this whole 5 minutes of fame, I've actually learn a lot! Most probably in terms of what are the most important, the most crucial, the most essential information to disseminate to the audience. Not every single thing should be presented because then it would bore the audience. The only thing that you should bear in mind is that just present the best quality that you have (referring to the digital portfolio presentation). If you happened to be the student ambassador for a certain NGO then present it with proud to the audience because in the end, the main point of this digital portfolio presentation is to market yourself to potential employers, and if you are not proud with your achievements, then who will?

With that, I thank you.

P.S: I don't know if I am being reflective enough... 

Reflection for Digital Portfolio

Nur Fatin Atiqah Binti Abdul Rahman

AH100600

The first moment Sir Ghazali Bunari assigned the class to do this digital portfolio, the feelings that I had was excited. Yes, I was excited to be assigned to do such task. A digital portfolio, where we are free to create our very own portfolio to market ourselves to potential employers out there as creative as we can? Do whatever you want? Are you serious? Yes, that was in my mind but to be honest when the time flies, and the due date plus the presentation day is nearing, I was like, “Why oh why do we need to create a digital portfolio? Such nuisance, you know!”

So here I sit in front of my laptop and trying to reflect the task that I had finished last Tuesday (18th December 2012), remembering back what inputs and knowledge had I gained during finishing and completing this digital portfolio. There are several benefits that I gained though, and first, I must say that I am convinced now with my ability to create cute and pretty slides. I can play with colours, mix here and there and voila, a very cute presentation slides indeed! So proud if you wanted to know the truth. Even though there are several classmates who had gone all out and produce their very own digital portfolio using Prezi software, flash and videos, but I still want to say that my PowerPoint is not that bad at all. But still, Kudos to everyone because we can produce a unique and one of a kind portfolio, compared to the bland resume.

Other than that, I also learned during the presentation of this digital portfolio about the art of presenting what is more important rather than presenting the whole slides. Being given only 5 minutes to present, it was quite a challenge because normally the students would stand at the front and talk about every single things written on the slide thus the time given was not sufficient enough. Therefore, from the 5 minutes given, I know what to present, what to explain and what to elaborate further.

In conclusion, this digital portfolio had given me a new experience and knowledge that can be used for the benefits of the future! YAY! :D

Reflection on Career Exploration (Interview)

Nur Fatin Atiqah Binti Abdul Rahman

AH100600

The career exploration task requires the students to go out and meet people that they want to interview regarding the job that the interviewees are working at the time being. At first, finding the right person to be interviewed is quite difficult because we need to find someone who is not working in the government sector, plus several private companies are not that opened and being pessimistic when it comes to being interviewed. These private sectors are all private and confidential even though this kind of interview that we were conducting is relatively normal and pretty basic. It's not that we were asking really confidential questions as we also know the limits on what to ask and find out in the business industry. 

Other than that, after finding the right person, the other issues that might arise would be to keep the interview on track with the purposes as our respondent tends to talk a lot when given the chance. So it is quite a challenge to keep the interview on track plus to keep up with the time constraint (because we did the interview around 5.00pm). But overall it was quite a new experience for me. To do this task along with four of my group members, it opens up my eyes to see things from a different perspectives altogether. I believe that the experience I get from this can be very beneficial when the right time comes.

Reflection for Reaction Paper Tasks (The Blog Posts)

Nur Fatin Atiqah Binti Abdul Rahman

AH100600

In English for Career Search subject, students are required to write reflections on several topics that they had learned in the class. These reflections are reactions towards their feelings, their opinions on the subtopics taught during the class. In my own opinions, these reflections that we are needed to do give several benefits and advantages to the students. First of all, students are being encouraged to write and express themselves in written form by using 100% English language. Yes, there may be some several and occasional grammar mistakes but it is a learning process, an ongoing one because for someone to be able to master a language, they need to use it frequently. Thus, to be able to write in English, they need to write, especially by expressing themselves using the English language as much as they can. 

Secondly, these reflections also help the students to look back and review what they had learned in the class. These reactions help students to remember and stored whatever they had learned in the long term memory. Moreover, the recall processes also helps the students to enhance their comprehension and understandings on the subtopics learned. Without these reflections process, students may tend to forget what they had learned in class.

Reflection for MyLine

Nur Fatin Atiqah Binti Abdul Rahman

AH100600

        As part of our English for Career Search syllabus, each student is required to do the MyLine assessment in order to obtain 5% from overall marks. For this subject, the MyLine consists of three forums with different topics, discussing about the issues related with careers and employments. Besides that, students are only required to reply to only two topics and then discussed and voice out their own opinions and views on the subject. It is relatively a very general topic, and students are free to express their thoughts as freely as they can. From these medium, students can also get to know the perceptions of others on the issues brought up by the MyLine admin. This is because, different people would have different views on a certain matter and these differences can enhance the comprehension and understandings of the students as well. Moreover, the outcomes of these discussions can also prepared the students before entering the workforce as they have already shared the knowledge and insights of how the working life and real world would be like. Last but not least, from my own personal opinions, I believe that these assessments are a good way to encourage students to speak out their minds plus helps students to practice writing in English proficiently.

Reflection for Cover Letter (or Job Application Letter)

Nur Fatin Atiqah Binti Abdul Rahman

AH100600

A cover letter is like a winning letter to attract the potential employers during the job interview. This cover letter will be usually enclosed with a resume, and they are the most essential things to do whenever you are applying for a job. Moreover, a cover letter is not the same like any ordinary formal letter because this is the letter that would promote and market you to the max. Writing the most important information is the key because not everything about us should be acknowledge by the interviewers at the very beginning. 

Other than that, as we are writing to attract, thus the writing styles must well suit the nature of the job that we are applying. In example, if I am to apply for a Human Resource Executive position, the cover letter that I am writing must be straightforward and formal without any unnecessary information or lengthy sentences. Furthermore, during this lesson, I also learned about the correct format to write a cover letter since there are too many formats that we can Google from the internet, therefore we will be having a difficult time to choose the best and most appropriate cover letter’s format. In a nutshell, a cover letter is crucial for every job applicants because it shows your passion and your determination to get the job. If you are doing it light-heartedly, then it can be assumed that you are already failing the job interview before you actually sitting for it.

Reflection for Curriculum Vitae (CV)

Nur Fatin Atiqah Binti Abdul Rahman

AH100600

        As the name stated clearly, English for Career Search helps the students to prepare themselves and guides them on how to search a career well best suited them after they are graduating from universities or colleges. And as part of its syllabus, English for Career Search subject teach the students on how to create and write a winning CV. This is because most students usually would write a standard and very common CV when it comes to writing a resume for job interviews. They often embark to a ready-made resume template and doing it the easiest way but ordinary CV could not stand out and grabs the attention. Therefore, in English for Career Search, students are being taught on how to personalize their very own resume and make it an attention grabber. Students are also being exposed to several types of CV and being given tips and guidelines on what to write about and what to avoid. A CV is very important for every job’s candidates because it becomes the first impressions of the recruiters towards the candidates. If the CV fails to impress the recruiters, then maybe the rest of the interview session will be a fruitless one. In a nutshell, from this subtopic, I have learned how to create a CV that can stand out from the rest.

My reflection on Career Planning subtopic :)

Nur Fatin Atiqah Binti Abdul Rahman

AH100600

Assalamualaikum and hello everyone ;) 

This post is about my personal reflection/reaction on the Career Planning subtopic that we had learned during the class. From my own point of view, I see that this subtopic really guides and helps me in planning for my future career path. This is because, even at this stage of my study, I still have no clue of what I’ll be doing when I graduated in less than two years time. I am almost clueless, I have no specific goals and targets, and all I ever wanted to do is to just get over this degree phase, get a good results and then just go with the flow. Then just maybe after that I may continue my postgraduate studies or embarking the workforce. Either way or maybe I should just get married and be an excellent housewife (LOL). 

But then, failing to plan is planning to fail, right? ;)

So thank you very much for our dearest lecturer, Sir Ghazali Bunari to actually ask us to do a Career Planning presentation individually in front of the classmates! Of course I just had to do it and hence, came the inspiration to become a lecturer and also becoming a novelist one day, yay! :D

I’ve planned to become a lecturer in HRD field and to write as many books as I can in many years to come. First, I like to become a lecturer because I have interest in doing researches for the goodness of mankind and plus I like to see myself become a good role model for the youngsters. Second, I like to become a novelist because I can feel it in my vibes in becoming a story writer. It just feels good and pleasurable in being able to reach out towards others by writing a very good story ^^

However, I still have some doubts in becoming a lecturer in HRD field because truth to be told, my heart is not entirely in this field. I just feel like joining the history or politics or even comparative religions field! I am not sure about that for now but hey, it’s already a good start to have an actual career planning after all! And about becoming a novelist, it is a target that I have already set a long time ago and I really hope my passion to become a story writer will not fade away or die :D

Last but not least, I really hope the career planning that I had constructed can really assist me while choosing for the right path to go after my graduation. The career plan I had prepared now might change in the future or it still stays the same but I have learned one thing from this subtopic which is, whatever I’ll do from now on, just aim high! Aim higher if I can! I must challenge myself to go out there and show my fullest potentials and credibility! We only live once, so why must we be afraid to go out and show the world what’s our worth? ;) 

Thank you for reading! :D