e-Portfolio 4: English, our partner

Topic: English language competence is a significant aspect of an engineering student’s academic life and prospective career.


When we, year one students, first submitted our applications to NUS, we already knew that we would not use our mother tongue languages as a tool for study anymore. It is English, instead. The chosen one, English, got its position through a flow of history. Consequently, it becomes a significant aspect of our academic lives and prospective careers.

English is used for most academic materials in the world. Books at our libraries are among the evidences which prove that authors prefer English as their language for publication. International schools and universities use English as their teaching language. We use English books as references and write English in our researches and reports for a convenient cause that readers can easily review and understand. If we do research in our home countries (China, India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, etc), we need to translate it into English for worldwide publication. In short, our academic lives get no limitation with the help of English competence.

English follows us even after we get a career. For an engineer, graduating does not mean stopping studying. We still need to observe documents relating to our works. We need to improve our knowledge about issues we’ll be working on. Above all others, we need to interact with our partners, communicate with international colleagues. And again, English comes as a helpful and consistent tool serve our needs. English is considered as a common point for communication. We cannot work efficiently without some extent of proficiency in English. As an engineer, we treat English as a partner in work.

In conclusion, English language competence plays an important role in our trips. We need it for our academic lives as well as our future careers. Take its advantage and go on!

i think it is indeed true that English-the language of the world -is very important to engineering students's future career.
one of the misconceptions is that engineering students do not need as much proficiency in English language as those students from Arts or business. Initially, I actually had this misconception as well. However, through the course of the study, i gradually realise that English language is very significant to engineering students' academic studies . In the future, we may work together with different people from all over the world. Thus, it is very crucial to make our ideas or perspectives clear to others, especially during the design processes.
Therefore, by realising the importance of English language, not only for academic studies and prospective career, but also for daily communications, we should continue to put in effort to improve our language skills.

On The English Language

"The English language is a very significant aspect of an engineering student's academic life and prospective career."

I do not intend this last blog entry to be another argumentative essay. I guess we already intuitively know the arguments for and against that statement- on where (in our lives) the English language would be greatly needed, and the possibilities for other languages as a medium of thought and expression. For a typical Singaporean student like me, I believe that the English language would be very significant, if not mandatory, if we wish to continue beyond university and into the workforce. English is Singapore's first language, it's the language we use for trade, research, education and development.
As we know, many engineering graduates actually do not end up working in their field of study. Beyond the politically correct answers that 'English would be the qualitative counterpart to the engineering language" (Mathematics accounts for the quantitative aspect), we must still account if English is still significant to the student even if his prospective career is radically different. To this, we must of course focus back on the nature of language again.

Psychology has defined the English more than just a means of thought expression. Language has been the reason for human success and dominance, since it brings together individuals to work in cohesion and to a common development. Moreover, the English language in itself is a synthesis of various older languages, bringing together conceptual representations of various cultures into one unified language. From here, we can see that such unity would be crucial for life, since life is about development.

Now, if we were to empirically define the concept of 'the hard sciences', we find that these sciences are actually evidences and excerpts of our human success and development. It is on this basis we concluded (in the first post) that the prupose of engineering and technology is for human improvement. From here we could make a direct integration of English as a language of development and the hard sciences as a form of development and conclude that these two disciplines are very closely related.

However, we can still go beyond this premise-conclusion to see that English is more than just for academics and prospective careers in engineering. From the above, we see that the English language defines us for who we are. We use English to convey personal emotions, enjoy works of litrature (the movie review), and share our opinions. While these have little to do directly with the hard sciences, we see that they too have a lot to do with our future prospects. And to all the students who do not wish to pursue a career in the hard sciences, we can now see how English is still significant in all their future endeavours.

Be it a researcher in a lab, a teacher in a class, or a student in a library. English has proven its worth in all domains of our lives- be it in the development of knowledge in Science and Engineering, or in the 'softer' areas of our lifestyle and well-being. Our future success and prospects will depend greatly on these alphabets I type today, not only as an engineer, but rather as a human being- altogether.

E-portfolio 3: An intepretation of integration, rather than a balanced review

I thought that the agenda for e-portfolio 3 was a rather interesting one. For once, we were allowed to go to SELF and review on an article or film that we liked. This comes as a rather pleasant suprise, since it breaks the monotony of mathematics and engineering-related topics we had been ploughing through for the past 3 months. There ought to be a sort of balance between work and rest, we often say- just as there ought to be a balance between the sciences, the arts, and our ethics.

Balance- How is it possible to balance contradictory doctrines to life and yet retain our integrity along the way? On one hand we are encouraged to be designers, innovators and entrepernuers for the improvement of humanity; on the other hand lies the risk of us getting carried away and losing our humanity in the process. After all, as we distinguish work from play, and personal identity from social norms, just as how we have divided physics from sociology, we find that it becomes increasingly difficult to re-unite them together into one coherent intuition called life.

Incidentally, there was a movie I had watched that speaks about the same lines. The movie was titled 'Equilibrium', and from the title we already roughly know where the director is coming from, and going to. Basically, Equilibrium speaks of a post apocalyptic civilization determined not to follow the footsteps of its predecessing civilizations. Realizing that the human emotion was responsible for man's inhumanity to man, that civilization decrees a doctrine of emotional ban and suppression.

In the movie we get to follow the journey of the protagonist, raised by 'logic', and slowly learning about the truth, beauty and goodness about human emotions via his frequent contact with the rebels. During the acquisition process he gets too emotional momentarily, and was depicted to be 'weak' and 'illogical'. However, what captured my attention was that towards the end of the movie, the protagonist finally manages to integrate both factual logic and intuitive emotions into a being far superior than both the government (of the civilization) and the rebels.

For me, the take-away for the day was the concept of 'integration'. Balance does not mean proportioning contrasting subjects into equal proportions and subsequently trying to live them all together at once. It does not constitute an hour of soulless studying, then another hour of mindless gaming immediately after-- such a lifestyle would be one of utter madness, no different from one of bi-polar disorder or schizophrenia. Rather, I believe that just as the movie had interpreted, and the agenda of 'e-portfolio 3' had implied: to 'integrate' both relaxation and work, just as logic and emotions, or even the self and the community, together as one.

...A possible integration such that this blog review itself does not merely become another English homework, but also as a form of personal expression and relaxation.

Of course, as what the title of this post states, such interpretations are no more than subjective whims. But in my opinion, and hopefully the opinion of the director of the movie 'Equilibrium', we can see that life is more than a singular goal-orientated drive to a certain success in a certain domain. But a rather a harmonious blend of what we conventionally call 'the opposites'. After all, it's a fact that beauty actually arises from unity and moderation, rather than from complexity and division.

Movie reviews

The movie ' Schindler's List' is one of my favourite wartime movie. The main plot is about Schindler, a German businessman who saved the livies of 1100 Polish Jews during the World War II by employing them in his factory. Schindler was a member of the National Socialist Party and had a lavish life. He opened his factory as a war profiteer and employed the Jews who were cheaper labours. However, there were more and more orders from the Nazi Party to send the remaining Jews in the city to the concentration camps.Originally, his intentions were to making money, but as time passed, he begined ordering his assistant to save as many lives as possible. So he spent much of his money bribing the Nazi officials to save "his" workers, Jewish women and the innocent children as well. He finally comprised as many Jewish workers as possible in his " list" and shifted them to a safe site. When the war ended, the Jews were liberated from the factories.

The most touching part of the movie is the ending where Schindler and his wife were leaving the factory as he ran out of money and the war also ended in Europe. He bid farewell to his workers who were very grateful for what he had done to save their lives. They gave him a letter, explaining he was not a war criminal, together with a ring secretly made by the workers with the quotation" whoever saves one life saves the world entire." Schindler was deeply touched but regreted as he felt that he could have done more to save more innocent lives.

The movie is a reflection of the humanity during the war time. Human beings may lose their rationales. Some people might become senseless killers while some people are trying their best to save any innocent lives. After the war, there were fewer than 4000 Jews living in Poland . Many of them were the decendants of the Schindler's Jews. Even till now, many of these Jewish decendants are still very grateful of what he had done.

Therefore, we should appreciate the peaceful life that we have today and should not take it for granted. They human relationship may become especially fragile during the war times.

Movie Review

i had watched the movie titled, The Pursuit of Happyness. It is based on a true story in which a salesman named, Chris Gardner who invests the family savings in some medical product and end up financially broke. As such, his relationship with his wife, Linda, deteriorated. Eventually his wife leaves him and moves to New York where she has received a job in a pizza parlor. She wishes to take their son Christopher with her, but Chris refuses because they both know that Linda will be unable to take care of him. Without money or a wife, but totally committed to his son Christopher, Chris sees the chance to fight for a stockbroker internship position at Dean Witter, offering a more promising career at the end of a six month unpaid training period. There are nineteen other candidates for the one position. Meanwhile, he encounters many challenges and difficulties, including a period of homelessness and troubles with the IRS.

One of the reasons why Chris managed to get back on his life is because he never gave up. In my opinion, this virtue of perseverance is one some people lack in their character. These people tend to give up easily whenever they meet an obstacle. As such they tend to frown on difficulties in life instead of embracing them as challenges. In good times, these people would have no problem. However when times become bad, these people may have some difficulties adapting to the new environment.

e-Portfolio 3: Movie Review

I've read somewhere that the topic for this week portfolio can be either stuff review or WA comment. I decided to take this space to write about a movie that I watched at the first time I came to SELF.

The movie title, which we all have heard about, is "The Ice Age". Some of my friends advised me not to go to learning centers (like SELF) to watch movies. I agree that reading articles and textbooks is good, but they should also ask themselves why there are such these movies at SELF. Besides the listening skill, movies could teach viewers some meaningful lessons.

"The Ice Age" tells a story about a young male mammoth and his friend, a sloth, who accidentally involved in a wicked plan of a tiger group. With his natural love, the sloth decided to keep the human baby after witnessing her mother's death. On the way returning the baby to her father, the two friends met a tiger who first worked for the tiger group but later helped the two. After all, they realised that the conflict between animals and humans is just a misapprehension, and that they were all in a common sense: happiness of being sympathetic... Going through the story, there's a lot of laughs, but lessons lie behind. Personally, I realised that not a first glance but long time contact will identify the person we are going along with. Perhaps we'll be able to recognize the real value of a person (a friend) in such a strange situation.

I planned to write more about the movie, but I'd better let interested people watch it by themselves. Sit back and enjoy during your free time!

WA 2: Understanding the questions

What concerns people most in choosing their own question may be their doubt about sufficient understanding about it. With the following quick share, hopefully, choosing one out of the three questions will be quite easier.

Question 1 is the shortest:
Choose a major engineering accident (“Psychology and design processes” lists some at the beginning of section two). Present an argument on whether the use of psychology as described in “Psychology and design processes” during the design process would have prevented the accident.
The article mentions many things, but they are not quite useful for this question. Instead of understanding the content of that very long article, it is useful to have a glance at its first and last sentences of each paragraph. It indicates that engineering accidents are also due to the lack of social interaction. From that point, it is obvious that psychology can help with preventing accidents. "What is the relation between psychology" and "How can it help lessen the risk?" are the two questions need to be answered.

Question 2 takes some first lines to approach the topic:
As noted in “Nuclear power’s new dawn,” the public is very concerned about the safe operation of nuclear reactors. Public opposition was given as one reason why few nuclear reactors have been built in the past few decades in many countries. With this concern in mind, choose one of the generation IV reactor concepts listed on page 239 of “Nuclear power’s new dawn” and present an argument to support further research and development funding for it. Remember to consider influential factors such as security, cost or performance when you summarize and rebut opposing views. You will need to include very recently published sources in your references.
Two important terms which need to keep in mind are "reactor concepts" and "support". The question asks for a decision and then a reason for making it. One who chooses this question can first make a comparison between those concepts regarding of safety (or security), cost, performance and public reaction factors. The opposed arguments should be stated first before rebutting with supportive views. The topic of this question is rather easy to catch up, but persuasive thesis and efficient facts should be carried out.

Question 3 needs more surveying work:
Choose a concept or prototype currently in research and development and not widely available in the market. Present an argument on how the design can be improved to enhance safety. Remember to consider influential factors such as cost or performance when you summarize and rebut opposing views. You will need to include very recently published sources in your references.
Looking for a prospective device or technology that hasn't been popular is the first step. More brainstorming is needed in this question. After getting the concept (or prototype), one can think about a suggestion for the design in order to make it safer. Interaction between that concept and humans is a good starting-point. In line with every supportive argumentis an opposing view. Paragraph can be organized in block pattern to discuss about safety and infuential factors.

Each question of the WA2 has its own topic but relates to each other in the way of writing an argumentative essay. Before the moment of decision, reading the questions again and again to understand them is much essential.

WA1

It is true that we need to be more creative especially in today's modern context where we face complex issues like climate change. Usually such problems require great ingenuity and often need the integration of different disciplines. For example, tackling the problem of climate change requires engineers to design new technology to deal with greenhouse gases, environmentalists and politicians to campaign for clean technology, cooperation of venture capitalist and business counterpart to capitalize on green technology and the general public to be more efficient in the usage energy. This underlines the fact that problems cannot be viewed from one perceptive alone.

Hence engineers need to inculcate the virtue of anticipating possible problems before embarking on a project. In fact being ignorant of other problems may actually spell disaster for an engineering project. For instance, one of the main reasons why the causalities of Titanic is high was due to the fact that there were insufficient life boats around. Without sufficient preparation, any project is likely to fail. After all, people who fail to plan, plan to fail.

WA 1 reflection

The topic for WA1 was the two problems faced by the engineers in our home country. While I was doing research, i found out that there are actually many obstacles that greatly hinder the engineering design and processes. In China, for example, besides the rigid education system and the lack of a centralised authority, there are also problems like corruption and lack of suitable equipment and materials. Thus, there are actually many more challenges in the process of engineering design.
I also realised that in different countries, there are different major problems. one of the common problems is the education system which does not promote creativity, whether in China or Singapore. I think this is because the education systems in the eastern countries are different from that in the western countries. we can see that in the 20th century, the world's technological advancements were dominated by the European and the American countries. and thus the education system in a country plays a significant role in mouldling the future generations.

another common problem is the lack of fund. in many countries, it is very difficult to raise enough fund to start a project. most of the time, a project may easily take up to millions of dollars. thus, sometimes, a project may be either aborted or stopped half way due to the lack of fund.

all in all, engineering design processes in different countries may face various problems which cannot be easily solved.

Syeed Khandani's Engineering Design Process, Revisited

In the article Engineering Design Process, Khandani states that the five major processes are: "defining the problem", "gathering information", "generating multiple solutions", "analyze and select a solution", and finally "analyzing and implementing the solution". He asserts that every process for innovation bank on these five factors.

In the first writing assignment, we have looked at how some problems in our home country may significantly hamper Engineering Design Process for innovations. We focused primarily on these five processes, and listed how domestic limitations may affect each of these stages from being fully realized (i.e. put into action).

But before we go on, we need to holistically consider whether true engineering can actually be reduced into such an idealistic statement.

We know that true engineering is practised. While the above five statements may conceptualize the major hurdles to overcome during the process, these statements do not fully reflect the full process of engineering design. In reality, most engineers are actually plauged by another series of much pettier problems during the design process. Examples of which include deadlines, funding, collaboration (failure), profits and personal interest. These problems are usually social, economic and psychological in nature, yet they too do greatly contribute to the engineering design process.

In the guest presentation given 28th August 2009, one of the presenters stated that engineering is not 'all between man and machine'. Rather, our present engineering success was built out of a tension of 'contingency and compromise' from the past. Compromise not only between man and truth (technological knowledge advancement), but also between man and himself (psychology), man and society, man and ethics, and ultimately man and his ideals.

There is a saying that "should man truly wish to improve his current deposition (either technologically via engineering or spiritually via metaphysical enlightenment), the three primary areas to work on shoild be in the domains of Truth, Goodness and Beauty.". Indeed, while we strive twards a greater knowledge of the objective truth and towards the beauty of the improved life, we cannot compromise Goodness (ethics, especially in the field of bioengineering) for aesthetics. Neither can we disregard our needs for survival (wages), nor the true aims of engineering for our fellow men.

Engineering, as I believe, is more than just another set of skills to master or understand. And while the above five processes do justify the main concerns of engineering, we still have to bear in mind that such concerns are not exhaustive. To the technicalities of engineering must be added the philosophy, and the implications of engineering. Then can we holistically realize engineering as it truly is.

Creativity Adventure

The lecture last week likely drew up an overall picture of a design process. Those who do not want to work fixedly could somewhat imagine their future job. The three previous posts did summary the lecture’s contents sufficiently well; for that reason, in this post, an adventure of creativity is presented to clarify the process.

The following Greek mythology gives us a fair example of the adventure.

Perhaps being the namesake of the Greek city, Athens, best honours Athena, but it was her creativity that allowed the city to keep the name. The Greek god of the sea, Poseidon was jealous of this, so he challenged Athena in a contest to give the Greeks something. The winner would become the city's final patron. Poseidon gave the residents a saltwater well. Athena topped him by providing a very creative gift: an olive tree, which provided shade from the sun, oil for lamps and olives to eat. Her multipurpose gift illustrates her brilliance. The olive today is of course associated with Greece (Donna Talarico, 2007).

As the story presents, the adventure begins with an idea. Generating an idea is not such a hard work since it is not necessary that the idea be significant. As long as humans still demand, there are a lot of things to do to meet their needs. The first try should take place from the daily life where some improvements should be carried out. Observing and questioning can also help. Besides, the idea should be new and interesting. It is because: Thinking is the door, but creativity is the key.

In the second part, the idea now needs analysing. What is its purpose? How can it give improvements? How about its feasibility? What are its affects against society and vice versa? The answers can only be objective if they are obtained from other people. Both experts and civilians will give distinctive answers to the idea. Interviewing, in this case, is more useful than thinking. Finding out about social feedback and challenges extending into contemporary society must not be ignored.

The final stage of the process is bringing the idea into life after a lot of considerations. It does not matter which way it is conducted or how long it takes, but it should not be done without passion. During the work, obstacles and criticisms may slow down the speed or even cause diversion. Like Galileo centuries ago, he kept his determination against all other harsh prejudice. Aspirations could be fulfilled with patient and persistence.

A design process which could be innovative requires creativity, feasibility and determination. “Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe”, said Gail Devers.

The need for being creative and innovative

The three professors discussed the problems faced by engineers from the different perspectives. The first speaker, professor Macelo Ang, shared with us some very creative inventions which made us ponder whether the creations would be accepted by the public. For example, airplane was one of the greatest inventions in the 19th century. Airplanes had quickly become a way of transportation because they made our lives much more convenient. Hence, it was a successful invention. On the other hand, however, the full length umbrella is indeed a better way to shield us from rain, but it may not be accepted by majority of people. Thus, we should ensure that the products invented must suit people’s needs well.

While the need for being creative had been emphasized, we must also be aware of the social factors. As being mentioned by the second professor, the invention of picture phone was definitely a breakthrough during that period. However, it had eventually become a failure because of the fact that users may want to keep their privacy while they are talking over the phones. Therefore, sometimes the products or inventions may not be commonly adopted if we ignore the social external factors.

All in all, as an engineering student, it is important to be creative and innovative at all times. Nevertheless, we must also take into considerations about the external factors which may possibly affect the products. Lastly, as being mentioned by professor Seah, we need to have passion for what we aim to achieve

On technology and meaning

I would like to refer one of the issues brought up by guest speaker Marcelo H Ang Jr on Friday 28th August 2009 regarding the philosophy of life and technology.

Marcelo had brought up a series of questions and interpretations on the earlier half of his presentation. One of which struck me most was the issue of the purpose of life. In his presentation, he made a loose allusion between the meaning of life, perfection, human drives and solving problems. While he mentions that without challenges and strives for perfection life would hold little meaning, he acknowledges that a life strived just for the creation and solving of problems is no different from reaching out to an ever shifting goalpost. Personally, I believe that these words do hold very good sense.

Now, as we strive towards success by come up with solutions to counter yesterday's problems, a fundamental question arises: what does engineering and technology have to do with the meaning of our lives?

Indeed, we can generally agree that much of our world is far from perfection. Asthetically, we see an impaired world as a reflection of our impaired selves; hence from engineering we sought solutions to enhance ourselves. With our advances in technology, we have made our lives more comfortable, and at the same time took a step in the direction of perfection. Glasses help us to see when our eyesight fails; the motor car allows us to travel further than our legs can carry us. We build buildings to protect ourselves from the elements, as well as infrastructure to facilitate development within our society.

But even so, we cannot say that the strife towards technological advancements is the sole purpose of our lives. We know that the purpose of life transcends this one-dimensional issue of merely creating and solving problems. As observed by Marcelo with his analogy of the shifting goalpost, such ideals to achieve perfection by solving problems would only lead to the creation of other problems. Moreover, it is not until we are infinitely successful do we see a purpose in living. If it is so- then it can be argued that life itself is meaningless.

So what can we conclude? It would be impossible to make a hasty philosophical conclusion today on what the true meaning of life is. Similarily, it would be equally unwise to state that our inventions have brought us nowhere. (After all, it is evident that the quality of life has improved over the past few decades with technology.) Perhaps our true purpose in life is to make use of the time that has been bestowed upon us to improve- not only technologically speaking, but also in a metaphysical sense. Technology, being what we do best, then becomes an important channel and medium for that 'holistic' improvement towards perfection.

Speaker No. 1

The first speaker spoke about the issue of being innovative in the modern context. While he agrees that it is increasingly difficult to create new ground breaking inventions like the first aircraft, he still believes there are still rooms for improvement in even the simplest of things. Being a strong advocate of innovation, he further explained that the driving force of today’s advancement in technology has helped improve the standard of living of the people. As such, in order to inculcate innovativeness in NUS engineering students, the faculty has adjusted its curriculum to evolve around the idea of design centric program.

Certainly, having a design centric program will assist student to become more innovative by expanding their mental horizon. A design centric program encourages student to think of alternative solutions to a problem by taking multiple view points on a single subject. For instance, energy can not only be harvest through hydroelectric dams or windmills but can be generated from solar panels. This illustrates the idea that innovation can help to steer students’ mindset away from the conventional way of doing things to unchartered zones.

However, to say that having a design centric program would surely groom all students to be innovative is exaggerated. In fact it takes more than just education to be creative. It involves a total change of mindset. This is because it requires an individual to challenge the existing norm and make a stand that the product is an improvement to the existing technology. This is by no means an easy feat, as there would be many detractors who would demoralise simply by saying it would not work. Hence it requires a strong will and great confidence in oneself in order to for a product to be new and creative.

As we can see, the idea of being creative not just lies with education. Key aspects like a change in mindset are also required in order to truly stand out from the crowd. Although NUS engineering faculty has offered opportunities for students to be different, the choice of becoming one ultimately depends on the students themselves.

Some Helpful Information

Alright, it seems that I have to speak in proper English from now on.

Welcome to Ideas Transaction Station. This blog serves as our group's community blog, and we will most probably be posting the bulk of our insights within this domain. As you would have already noticed, both authoring and administration privileges have been granted to all of us. In other words, all of us are 'ad-libidum' to change the settings, comment, as well as post on this blog with our own Google Accounts.

Evidently, we will have to comment on each other's blogs frequently within the next few weeks. I know it's tiring to open each and every one's blog manually from time to time to see whether there is a new post to comment on. As a tip, we could add each other's blog address into the 'Reading List' located at the 'Dashboard'. It provides automatic updates on everybody's (including other groups if necessary) posting status, and it would be much easier to see who has a new post on their blog ready for commenting.

Otherwise, do feel free to make changes as and when deemed necessary. I'll link this blog to our tutor's when all of us are connected and ready. In the meantime, enjoy and have a happy weekend.

=)