Professional Communication
Communication is something that every professional needs to excel at if they want to get anywhere in life. This can’t be just oral communication either, in this day and age being able to communicate effectively over different media types is extremely important because technology is a huge part of our world today.
My best work of this, in my opinion and as reflected in my grade, was the Executive Summary that we wrote individually for our proposal. I received a 39 out of 40 on this paper and I believe that this was well deserved. I showed that I could effectively write a one page summary of our entire proposal in a short amount of time effectively. This shows that I work well under pressure and I know how to communicate in a professional and concise manner. I am immensely proud of the work that I did on this executive summary. Anyone can write a paper and make it concise and clean when they’ve got hours upon hours to accomplish such a task, but it really shows effective communication skills if you can produce a clear summary of a 7 page proposal in less than an hour.
Communicating with others orally is also a huge part of being successful professionally. When I am presenting, I hold myself high and speak clearly and calmly. Talking too fast because of nerves is something that I have struggled with in the past, but I believe that this is something that I have conquered with presentations that I have done in the College of Business. Clear evidence of this is the video of our final presentation which you can watch here. My speaking parts in this presentation were short, sweet, and to the point which is something that I personally value in a presentation. No one wants to watch something that is dragging on for longer than necessary.
My ideas in the initial memo that we did for this class were praised as being very original and unique. I felt as if I had a great conversation with the GTA that was assisting me in editing my memo. I took her criticisms well and edited my memo accordingly. When we received that graded final memos, I was extremely disappointed in the grade that I received. It was only a couple of points better than the first one, and I did exactly what the GTA had told me. The grades that I received actually contradicted what she had told me I should do. I’m not sure if they had different people grading these memos or not, but it was definitely discouraging to see all your hard work get smashed down like that time and time again. Contrary to what the grade reflected, I believe that my Final Memo was a great example of how to communicate and persuade an idea effectively.