Effective Communication

Is effective communication important? That is a question with an obvious answer, but how is it important? Most will take a pause at this question and think, how is it important to me? To phrase an answer, is something many people have not thought of. The instant answers that pop into the head are usually, ‘to please my boss’, ‘to make good lifelong friends’, etc. These quick thoughts usually translate to two large categories, the working world and the social world. To elaborate, these two categories mean the areas where effective communication skills are important to us. Essentially, the areas where effective communication is needed are direct links to how they are important to us!

The Working World

The working world is a key place where effective communication skills are needed. From the topic list (from the ES2007S course schedule), some key supporting points picked out are already, resume writing, giving bad / good news, or even presentation skills. These are just some practical applications where effective communication skills are needed as we need to convey ideas and qualities to our target audience, be it through writing or even in person, orally. Going in deeper, it is often needed in our daily lives in our jobs as we communicate with our higher ups or even our subordinates. Imagine the brightest scientist with poor communication skills. Would his brilliant inventions not be recognised and tossed aside, all because he did not know how to tell others how brilliant they were? Many of the most successful businessmen today have to, as a must, communicate effectively (Donald Trump, Steve Jobs, just to name a few). This just goes to show how much we do need this in the working world.

The Social World

Having proven effective communication’s importance in the working world, it is obvious to state that it is important in the social world as well, after all, there is a certain degree of overlap between the two. To get some day to day examples out of the office, its application can begin from asking a favour from a friend to the awesome proposal to the love of your life. With the proper application of effective communication, the powers of persuasion increase, just akin to selling ice to the Eskimo. Are we able to do so? Are we able to get a friend to go out of the way to help us, or even able to make a magical moment even more special?

Towards Me

That being said how are these skills important to ME? Being an engineer in training, I expect my job will need me to be effective in communication because of the following three areas;

1) Need to communicate my engineering perspective and knowledge to my superior(s)
2) Need for me to ask favours from the more senior engineers or engineers from other fields
3) Need for me to command the technicians under me to effectively carry out the engineering solution

Without even going into the future, the demand for me to communicate effectively is already present as a student! To present my ideas to the class or to my fellow project mates, to communicate with professors and ask for their advice, or to even communicate with industrial clients to aid in my design projects are some of the few areas where effective communication is already demanded from me. From a social standpoint, in my co-curricular-activity (CCA), where I am called to make decisions and communicate with club members, it is demanded from me to build the image of the club to the new members as well as the old ones.
To communicate effectively, is definitely a skill important and pertinent to me. For use now, and in the future. I do trust that all students nod in agreement with me!