The two forms of professional communication that I will address in this page will be oral and written. Both are extremely important to success because the way that ideas are projected tells a lot about the individuals behind the work. A paper that only consists of block paragraphs with no sense of skim value will be frequently ignored because it will be obvious to the reader that no effort went into projecting the ideas in an efficient manner.

Communication Strengths

I will quickly begin by saying that I believe I do a great job projecting my ideas verbally to groups of people. I have had a lot of experience because of ROTC. I made sure to tell my other group members what worked for me when presenting ideas aloud to people.

I also do a good job with contributing to any group papers, which in this case was our research proposal. I get my portion done and then ask others if they need help.

To tie both of these strengths together, a comment on my final peer review stated, “[Stephan] did a great job in the presentation and in your parts of the proposal”.

The Memo Scare

Our first writing assignment instructed us to create a memo about a concern facing students on campus. I felt pretty good on my first entry, but received 0/10 points. I took in the advice that was given to me by Professor Bramhall, resubmitted it, and I still received a grade that was lower than expected of 31/40, which is a drastic improvement but still not up to my standards.

After these assignments, I realized that I may be good at oral communication but my written communication needs work. The next big writing assignment was the in-class executive summary. I knew that the memo and the executive summary would have some similarities (skim value, small paragraphs, bullet points, etc.) so I made sure to develop better writing habits by instilling the feedback that was given to me and conduct more research for what constitutes a good executive summary. My goal of improving my self-management is displayed in this situation because I took the initiative to improve my writing skills on my own time, and I was feeling optimistic about applying this new found knowledge. I received a 49/50 on the executive summary.

I learned that not everything about professional communication can be learned in a class room. Individuals need to seek other resources such as videos, written examples, and peer feedback. I think I could still work on my written forms of communication by getting assignments completed earlier so that I can show somebody else and get feedback. This is a more proactive solution in comparison to submitting it and then looking at the feedback with a poor grade.