Reflections ...

I&E is an enriching module in which I learnt many things in the process of organizing activities (although writing assessment is really a tedious and annoying task for me). In the process of idea creation, even though our group had suggested many rough plans, there were hardly any plans considered workable under time constraint due to its complexity, as well as up to lecturer’s standard because some are not that innovative as required. This was overcome by another round of brain storming from more realistic view. I leant to think further, deeper when justifying the feasibility of each idea. Our mentor taught us how to facilitate a group meeting of idea formation by asking appropriate questions, having a clear and structured mind, recombining existing ideas and thinking from different perspectives. Hopefully, i could grasp the skills of facilitating. I am more towards an introvert who do not like to talk to strangers because I fear of rejection and I am not very confident about what I would like to say. To overcome this, I have to change my mind set and be more confident in myself and try to approach unfamiliar people. I like the atmosphere of my group which is not pressurizing and more relaxing and optimistic. If I have a chance to organize an activity with other people again, I would take initiative, be more active and well-prepared.

~ Student from CBE

I have realised that this module was actually more interesting than i had first assumed. It didnt turn out to be such a drag. Although i still feel that this modules requires too much effort and time for a pass/fail IS module. Some of the problems we encountered included not having sufficient support for our event, which resulted in us deciding to scrap the event. This taught me that sometimes its better to just cut your losses and end that particular foray rather than, thinking too much time has gone into this and so, continuing. Another problem we faced was the surprise of finding many other volunteers in the Wards in our actual event, making it hard for us to organise the patients to start our chinese chess competition. We ended up switching to bowling as the equipment was already on hand and the patients were supposedly more interested in it. This taught me not to give up or lose steam over setbacks, as there is usually an alternative or a way to over come them. Initially each time our plan ended up changing I would feel "sian", and lose enthusiasm over it, and this could be felt throughout the group. What I like about my group is that they are all pretty laid back people. I myself am quite laid back and i don't really stress or panic too much about many things. If I had a group that was overly enthused about the module I would probably have not have worked well with them. My group didn't panic at any stage even when we changed plans very late into the module. Thinking back I think i should have clarified more details about the event with The Achievers. I was under the assumption that on the 13th of Jan it would only be us at the wards, and not a whole bunch of other volunteers. I'm still not certain whether it was my own assumption or whether my contact with The Achievers made it seem so by selectively leaving out certain information.

~ student from ACC