Tuesday 5 September 2017

Formal Self-Introduction email

Dear Professor Blackstone

My name is Poh Shi Lei and I am writing to formally introduce myself as a student in your Effective Communication class. After graduating from Temasek Polytechnic with diploma in green building and sustainability, I made the decision to further my studies in sustainable infrastructure engineering (building services) offered by Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT). The Singapore government’s initiative to transform the little island into a clean and green city has made me strongly believe that the programme I am pursuing is greatly beneficial to the sustainable building industries.

Aside from the hectic life in SIT, travelling keeps me motivated and ambitious. Travelling has made me appreciate different cultures and traditions. More importantly, I am able explore different places and meet new people around the world. Hence, communication allows me to stay connected with the world and build my professional and social networks. 

Throughout my education, I had the privileged to participate in an educational trip to Korea where I met several local technicians and engineers. After interacting with the engineering and building consultants in Korea, the consultants were impressed with my oral communication skills. This made me discover that I am able to effectively interact with others in a small group conversation. This incident allowed me to realise the importance of interpersonal communication.

Report writing and presentations are my weaknesses as it requires me more time to develop the format and sentence structure in order to generate a written report. Additionally, I am a shy person, I feel nervous in a public setting which in turn makes me underperform.

Through this class, my goal is to refine on my two weaknesses mentioned. I believe that holistic and effective communication are the key factors to successful networking as these would reflect positively on me, which will create vast opportunities ahead.

Yours sincerely

Poh Shi Lei

Edited on 8 September 2017

Edited on 11 September 2017
Edited on 12 September 2017
Edited on 26 September 2017
Edited on 24 November 2017

Read and commented:

Qui Yu Xiong
Reginald Goh
Ronvin Tan
Beh Hsiung Wei, Luke
Brad Blackstone

9 comments:

  1. Thanks for posting this detailed response to the task, Shi Lei. I appreciate you being one of the first to upload your self intro. Now I look forward to reading your classmates' responses. I'll get back to this later.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dear Shi Lei,

    It was interesting to know more about you through this introductory letter. I am also a frequent traveler because I love to explore the world as well.

    Positive points wise, I feel your letter has good format. You placed your strengths and weaknesses separately, supporting your strengths with substantial evidence and past experience.

    However I do feel that your weaknesses were a little lackluster with very few supporting experiences. Apart from that I think writing your diploma in small casings would be more appropriate.

    I hope to see you achieve your goals in being more confident in presentations and writing skills. All the best!

    Cheers,

    Qiu yu xiong

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Shi Lei,

    Reginald here. I too enjoy the experience of traveling to countries for the first time and meeting new people from all over the world and communication is essential towards building a wide social network.

    I would like to start with your flaws. There are a few grammar mistakes: e.g. "I have the privileged to" and "in a public setting which in turn made me". Instead, you could replace it with, "I had the privilege to" and "which in turn makes me", respectively. Also, the word, "deemed" is used a little weird in this setting. Maybe a better substitute would be, “presentation are my weaknesses”.

    Nonetheless, your self-introduction was smooth and easy to read. Well-structured and closed the passage with a short and concise summary.

    In conclusion, there are a couple of grammar mistakes that could be improved by reading books and observing the style of the sentences. Being more aware of how you speak could be helpful too. All the best towards your travel goals, I am looking forward to talking about it with you soon.

    Thank you.
    Best Regards,
    Reginald Goh

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks Reginald and Yuxiong, i read the comments that you guys gave and i think that its constructive. I made the necessary changes already!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Shi Lei,

    Good to see you SIT after graduating together from polytechnic! Seems like we have the same interest in sustainability. We can catch up more when we meet.

    For your letter, I thought that the it was rather perfect the format made it easy to read. I like how you are able to share your overseas experience and made it a key point as to why you enjoy travelling overseas.

    After reading your post, I think that both of us can work together together to improve our report writing skills.

    I hope to see you overcome your weakness and always strive to be better. All the best!

    Cheers,
    Ronvin Tan

    ReplyDelete
  6. Dear Shi Lei,

    Nice to see you in the same class again.

    I think your letter has very good content. However, I think you can include some life examples into your weaknesses. I think maybe you can look into that area and further expand on it.

    Thanks,
    Luke.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hi Ronvin and Luke

    After 3 years of poly, its nice to see you guys in SIT again! I noted down the constructive feedbacks and comments you guys posted. I will make the necessary amendment! Let's keep the flame going!

    Cheers
    Shi Lei

    ReplyDelete
  8. Dear Shi Lei,

    Thank you for the detailed self intro. You cover all the key topic areas, and also let us know something about your passion for noble national goals and for traveling. You mention your Korea trip as being particularly impactful. That bit is well developed, but perhaps another statement about your learning and / or insights there would have been helpful. Also, as I read I wondered where besides Korea you might have ventured to.

    You also openly discuss some of your communication weaknesses. We will certainly address those in our module.

    As for language use, there are a couple minor issues:

    1) Throughout my education, I had the privileged to participate in an educational trip to Korea where I met several professionals stretching from technicians to engineers. >>> (odd time context / wrong word form --- Reggie was correct)

    2) After interacting with the professionals, they were impressed ... >>> (Who was interacting? They?)

    3) Through this incident, it allowed me to realise the importance of interpersonal communication. >>> (sentence structure) This incident allowed me to realise the importance of interpersonal communication.

    I look forward to reading more of your writing this term.

    Brad

    ReplyDelete
  9. Dear Professor Blackstone

    First of all, thank you for taking the time to read my self introduction and provided useful feedbacks to improve on my post. Throughout the time, I also gathered all the feedbacks given by my peers and the necessary amendment has been made.

    It has always been my dream to be able to travel around different countries to experience, understand more of their cultures and widen my vision. Above all, a getaway for me from the hectic society here in Singapore.

    Lastly, english has been a subject that I wanted to improve on all the time. Unlike other subjects such as mathematics and science, english requires a lot of practice and guidance. As such, I really hope to improve on my weaknesses as mentioned above through this module.

    ReplyDelete

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