Saturday, October 18, 2008

My Biodata

My name is Aung Thein. I am currently a third year undergraduate student in National University of Singapore (NUS). I received Diploma of Civil and Environmental Engineering from Ngee Ann Polytechnic (NP) in February 2007. At the same time, I was awarded the Silver medal graduate among the batch from Year 2007. With the excellent academic records at NP, I managed to secure an undergraduate place in Civil Engineering in NUS to further my study.

I have a highly independent and self-motivated personality. In addition to be excelling in my studies, I also work constantly as part-time employee in various jobs in order to support my own living expenses and to gain more experiences in different fields. During my tertiary studies in NP, I worked as a sale assistant in Cold Storage supermarket for more than 2 years. And, I had gained many experiences in the area of customer service and managing stock in a service department from that job.

Soon after I got my diploma, I joined a local engineering consultant firm as an Engineer’s Assistant. My job scope included drafting structure drawings, doing design calculations and coordinating architects and contractors with engineers. Although, I only had 5 months of service time in that company, I have learnt many practical experiences relating to structural engineering and, also, many business aspects of engineering. After resigning from my full time position, I was offered a part-time draftman position by my Manager as a recognition of my dedication in the job.

My career’s goal is to become a professional engineer in the field that I pursue. Because of the working experiences that I have had, I realize more values in studies from a more practical point of view and that is also the main motivation that drives me to perform my best.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Reflecting on Research Project Experience


After going through this 5-weeks-long research project, my overall experience is positive, even though most of the time, I have to rush to finish my share amount of work.

I personally feel that the time frame given to the project was a bit short. It requires more time to prepare a fairly good report. However, I learnt the fundamental basis of preparing a research report. I also appreciated the whole preparation process from the initial stage of setting up research question to the final stage of writing conclusion and recommendation. It provided a comprehensive overview of what is expected from a research report.

I am lucky to have group mates who are highly initiative and task-oriented. We always managed to finish the tasks on time. I have also learnt many things, by working together with them, in the aspects of cultures and languages.

During the whole research period, the communication among the group mates was mainly through MSN online chat room, email and face-to-face meeting. Despite the limitation of meeting online, we managed to discuss the agenda of the meeting. Thus, I consider the communication was quite successful. However, there were times when messages got lost during the meeting which were mainly due to overload of information in the meeting.

Finally, I would like to conclude that the whole process of doing research project was a positive learning experience to me. I also found that it is very important to have group mates working together as a whole to produce a quality report and of course this have be achieved with the help of good and clear communication within the group.