Powerful Presentation Skills

Thanks to Che Lah, now everyone is aware that Sabrina, she has an American accent! :D

Well I'm not sure that I do but I do know that my English is a little bit different and it will only be different when I am actually nervous. When I am totally calm, trust me my English is somewhat very normal :)

Because Che Lah is so just so fun to be around with, I enjoyed his and Puan Rusilawati class a lot! I do believe it is essential for us to have this presentation skills because HELLOOOO PRESENTATION?! Very common; during our studies and also in working life later.  Nail this skill and what you want is, what you will get.

So if the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology is DNA--->RNA--->Protien,
the Central Dogma of a Powerful Presentation is Knowledge--->Confidence--->Enthusiasm.
If you have the knowledge on the topic that you will present, you will gain the confidence to talk about it and when you confidently know all this wonderful thing of the topic, then you definitely will be enthusiastic to share this information will the rest of the world! No? :)  I know I would.

So there are three major components of presentation skills - strategy, substance and style.
1) Strategy - Planning ahead for the event and positioning our self to take advantage of all the possible opportunities and to overcome any of the potential problem
2) Style - Developing our verbal and non-verbal skills to communicate our own way
3) Substance - Knowing your topic dearly at heart at least one point.

So my group and I presented on Eco-fashion. We choose this topic becuase it sounds COOL :D
And since Donald Trump said that "You never get a second chance to make a first impression", we started of our presentation with a fashion runway to grab our audience attention. I think it worked, hihi. I have learned a lot from everyone group presentation, most important I learned that a very versatile speaker can make any topic interesting and a very dull speaker will kill any topic, even the most fun topic ever.

So hopefully by the end of this communication course, I will be the most versatile speaker I can ever be.


"There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave. The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave."
-- Dale Carnegi, an Amercan writer and lecturer and the developer of famous courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training public speaking and interpersonal skills.

Dear Mr Carnegi, that is so true! 

Effective Resume and Cover Letter

And people say: The resume get you the interview ,the interview get you the job.

So today Madam Liza and Madam Farah share with us some few tips in constructing an effective resume. But what caught my attention the most is the Employer Recruiting process, which goes like this:

1) Look for someone inside the organization
2) Rely on networking and contacts and personal recommendations
3) Hire an employment agency
4) Review unsolicited resumes
5) Place a newspaper ad.

It seems as a Fresh Graduate it will be a little bit of a challenge to get a job since we usually depend on the last three to seek a job. However the list pretty much make sense. Of course if you have someone already in the organization that can be promoted, it is better to promote that person who's performance is already well-known rather than hiring a new employee and having the risk that he is unreliable, no? And it is also less risky to hire someone who is recommended than a unknown person. But it is just unfair for those who are actually qualified but does not have any contact, what would happen to him or her then? If you are not born with a silver in your mouth than you just have to work your way up! Do some networking! That is why I always attend career fair to make some contact here and there, and I also see BeST Programme as a stepping stone to start some influential networking. I do hope all of us in this programme will make full use of it.

I truly felt very content when Madam Liza asked all of us to list down our achievements. I just realized that I actually have gain a lot and have a lot to offer the world. The tips to play around with words, the adjective that represents us made a lot of difference in portraying oneself. Champion of  dot dot dot is better than Won first place dot dot dot..no? Champion sounds greater and stronger. I'm so ready to use the synonym application on Microsoft Word to help me built an elevated resume!
 
Sometimes I do wish that Malaysia is not so discriminate in the job hiring process. In US, resumes are only 1 page long with all the same essential details as a Malaysian resume but each resume is more tailored to a specific job that you only include relevant experiences to that resume. Therefore, the resume look more focus for that job. And a US resume also omits all the details that can be discriminate against someone such as physical appearance, their race, religion, gender and also marital status. It's just sad to know that the most important part of a Malaysia resume will be the picture. The picture?! Aiyaaa. It is just wrong to JUST judge someone based on their picture. Can they not use a picture to firstly judge someone? If I may use some bahasa pasar "What to do, masuk kandang kambing kita kena mengembeklah, masuk kandang lembu kita kena mengemoo lah..mooo.." 

So dear hiring managers,
Is my picture attractive enough? No?! Owh gosh there goes my new elevated resume down the bin.

" In the end antiblack, antifemale, and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing - antihumanism". -
Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman to win a seat in the United States Congress, 1924.

Conducting Effective Meeting

I was just super impressed with our instructor today, Assoc. Prof. Mohd Khir Ashari. He actually successfully made me thought about starting a career as a Company Secretary! He made it seem as being a Company Secretary as all glamorous. I even talk about it with my mother on our back home! :D But again, a glamorous life is not what I seek for, well sometimes I do want that life, but most of the time I prefer to be working on something that can actually contribute the society directly. I am super confuse with myself sometimes and I am very grateful that I entered this programme, it let me venture, seeing things out of my normal perspective.

So today we learn the concept of conducting an effective meeting, Everything was very general that is was easy to follow. The concept we learn today may not only be apply in a company meeting but also in a society that we are or will be involved in and also in family meeting. Time is gold and as we went through the course today, I keep on remembering the long hours of meeting that I had with my society back in high school to my university, were meeting were generally long and without a concrete conclusion. So if I were to rewind everything back with the knowledge I gain today, I believe that each society that I joined would have a better organization and we would have not faced some ridiculous outcome from a meeting, just becuase we decided that a meeting is where we need to express everything we are not satisfied with. An agenda planned before a meeting, I believe is very important to make sure that everyone is not only prepared with what they have to say but also to keep everyone focus. I absolutely agree 100 % with our instructor that we definitely should not add in 'dll - dan lain-lain' in an agenda of a meeting.

Looking forward to apply everything I've learn today for future use! I'll keep all the notes close to me :)

And thought to ponder for today:

 "People who enjoys meetings should not be in charge of anything"

Thomas Sowell, American Writer and Economists

How to Reach An Audience Through Blogging

Last Friday, some of the participants were reluctant to start a blog, mainly by saying 'Blogging is not my thing'. Before I first started blogging two years ago that is exactly how I felt. However, once I started blogging, I found that it was quite fun to actually share my experiences with others on my blog. So to those who feel like 'Why owh why must I blog', do remember the Malay saying "Belum cuba, belum tahu'. Blogging then became more interesting when people actually start to follow your blog or drop comments. Once you have start a blog, in general of course you would like people to actually read your blog, no? But will people actually want to read your blog? Having blog hopping since 4 years ago, I would like to share some of the things that I found appealing to actually follow a random blog.

Unless you are already a well-established blogger, your blog layout will play an important role to attract readers. First impression is important. You can reach an audience easily by having a nice layout for your blog. Make it attractive. Have an eye-catching blog title and blog description. Having a super cool URL will also be a plus. Attractive is very subjective, and no one can be more sincere about the layout of your blog except yourself. Think, if this was not your blog and you happen to stumble upon it, is everything about the blog at first glance captivating enough to make you stay and browse through the blog's posts?  An engaging layout will attract blog hoppers to spent a minute or two to actually browse through the contents of your blog and not click on other links on the sidebar.

However, a nice layout alone will not attract blog hoppers to actually follow your blog. Ultimately, all come downs to the content of yuour blog. Sincerity is your writing will show. Know your target audeince and stucture your sentences to their liking. Do add images and photographs on your blogging becuase both are fetching!

In general, if you are really determined to make your blog world famous, firstly you must have a passion in sharing your interest with the rest of the world. Blogging does requires dedication. Know your audience and stucture your posts in a way that is piquant. An attractive layout will surely make you blog even more talked about!

Let's free write!

Monday Blues.

*still blank*

*masih blank*

*and now you can hear the crickets creeping*

Owh I was blog hopping through the list of other participants blogs and I came across this blog "Freedom Wall", and the blog's description, which goes like this:

When I hear somebody sigh, "Life is hard," I am always tempted to ask, "Compared to what?"

made me think about how ungrateful I can be sometimes. Have you thank god for all of your blessing today? I just did.

The finger that burnt is getting better, a new superficial layer of skin is starting to cover the flesh, how the body works is just amazing.  Looking out the window, today is a sunny day. I dont like cats. I like ABC. I like cendol. I like everything known as FOOD, who doesn't no? I'm not sure what kind of widgets I should add on my blog, I'm not sure if I want to add some. I'm wearing a watch that is pretty much slowing down my typing. I think my spell check is no longer working. It is already 12.12 pm. I drink coffee everyday. I am simple. I like elephants. I like to eat. Writing what I like seem hards now. I should go comment other people blogs now. Maybe I'll be inspired.Ok that is already a minute of typing non-stop. Ok Sabrina, enough of this free writing go write a post.

Biotechnology

Unlike some of my friends, who may have second thoughts about choosing Biotechnology as their major, I knew since I was 6 years old that I wanted to be a scientist and nothing else!

And at a young age too I knew I wanted to be a plant scientist, with a vision that I can make this world a better place by improving the quality of corps in third world countries and thus improve their economy. Or at least increase the nutrients in crops and lessen the need of food supply, i.e Golden Rice. I had a biologist cum agriculturist cum agronomist as a father, which pretty much influence my intereset in agriculture :)

Then I went to college and actually Immunology interested me more, but plant was still close at heart. My electives were basicly Immunology based to feed my curiosity . If there was an Immunology and Infectious Disease minor, pasti dh boleh minor. My independent study was on plant biotech research and I'm quite proud with what I've achieved with my research.

Now that I'm back, it is good to know that there are more Bionexus status companies that are doing agriculture research. It make sense since Thrust 1 National Biotechnology Policy is Agriculture Biotechnology Development, no? 

So far, job hunting is quite challenging, most job offers in the Biotechnology industry are in Food Technology; of all biotech branches, I think food tech is the least that interest me. But as previously told, currently, I'm currently following BioTech Corp., BeST Programme.

Job hunting (Government Agencies)

Since both roommates nak tahu how it is like job hunting kat Malaysia, so here goes what have happen this one and half month of actively mencari kerja, as for the government agencies pastilah focus on plant biotech industry :)

1) Malaysian Cacao Board (MCB)

I'm pretty sure why everyone is wondering with the experiences and contacts I already have why I have not join this government agency. It is simply because their super duper canggih dari luaran (tak sure plak kat dalam macam mane, heh) Advanced Biotechnology  Center is located in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. If dekat Bangi, maybe dah selamat dah bekerja untuk mereka. Maybe I dont appreciate the opportunity like I should, I'm not sure why I'm taking this opportunity lightly, maybe betullah tu orang kata jangan bercinta di usia muda :D But if one day I decided I still want to do cacao research, dengan pantasnya akan contact Dr Guiltinan, hopefully with a support latter or a friendly email  from the person sharing credit for the sequence of cacao genome, MCB sedia menerima saya :)  Owh yes the project was done with French laboratories, if you remember my supervisors has once wanted to sent me there for summer, before WCF decided to delay their funding until God knows when. But yes, everyone must agree, if there was a crop that I should choose to work on, cacao would suit me best, no? :) However, cacao is not one of Malaysia's major penyumbang economy, maka dana pun x banyak sangat, most government funding is given to palm oil research.

2) Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB)

 I did applied tapi masih belum menerima sebarang jawapan. But this is hard to getlah I think, since masa apply, their opening was mainly for chemical related positions and yang for biotech they need someone who knows how to do mircoarray, aiseyman microarray ni tak berpengalamanlah. No no no no, I did not tell my dadlah, because I did not think I was fully qualified for the position, malulah nk mintak tolong macam tu, no? But my dad did offer an interview with HIM for a position as a field researcher involved in sagu, I did want to say yes, tapi malu ayah sendiri kot :D Again, I might sound like I'm not taking all my chances seriously right? I'm not sure, hurmmm.Tu bukan position just as an RA it was as an RO or as an agronomist which mean tak de maknanye tak nak take seriously the responsibility given, but I thought that if it was as an RO it better be something that I'm really interested with, I dont want to go to work everyday feeling terpaksa. Sagu? Hurmm. But, I did gave him my CV already.

3) Malaysian Agriculture Research Institute (MARDI) 

 Yang ni baru apply. And yang ni I'll ask papa to just please secure an interview je, if possible x delah secure the job sekali. I'm sure beribu-ribu graduate (dalam dan luar negara) yang lain apply jua, we'll see how it goes :)

4) Local Universities

I did applied as a tutor at UPM, UKM and UM tanpa menggunakan orang dalam. As for now, only UM responded.

There's a lot more government agencies and local universities research institute where you can start your career with, here's the list.Is either you can visit their website daily for vacancies or tengok iklan dalam paper because usually gov. agencies iklankan kat paper.

OK that is for gov. agencies. Jom lihat peluang pekerjaan di sector swasta pula.

BeST Programme

3/12/2010

Assalamualaikum,

Hello fellow readers, we meet again. Currently, I am at UniRazak attending the BeST Progamme. We were required to create a blog for learning purposes. I wanted to start a new blog but unfortunately, google is asking for verification requiring me to send my mobile number. Since everyone is trying to be super save in this cyber world, let's not do that, let's just use this blog. Eh wait, Puan Sita just mention to not start a new blog since maintaning ONE SINGLE blog is hard enough, so why add another blog and add up time in managing BLOGS. Very true.

So most likely, after this, my posts will be more professional written. Expect some improvements on the layout of this blog!

But as always, at first 'Yes, this blog will be improve!' but lastly 'Sorry for not updating this blog for so long'.

Let's see where this one will go :)

To BeST Programme partcipants and instructors who will be blog walking, blog hoping, WELCOME! Do forgive the cheesiness in some of the post :)

6/12/2010

But then, since BiotechCorp will also be monitoring the blog, I believe it will be best to just start a new blog for BeST Programme purposes. Mixing around peronal and business doesn't seem to be the right thing to do. Owh I think this will also be a great site to share my job hunting experiences with those in the States.

But feel free to visit my personal blog: Keeping things posted