I am writing this reflection having presented the poster and presentation today, with only the final draft of the technical report left (and the rest of my e-portfolio). So far, my group and I have made great strides towards completing the coursework for this class. Yesterday, we met up on campus and practised the presentation repetitively for hours, making adjustments to our oral content and the presentation's alike, until we were all satisfied with the result. Although I believe our nerves got the best of us today, as the last group to go, I am happy that this is done with and past us (my hands were shaking the entire time). The poster got many positive reviews, with industry professionals and faculty members coming to discuss our idea in more detail, which is a positive indicator after we received close to zero questions in the presentations. They offered insight on the legislation and regulations in Qatar, something which we will be sure to mention in the technical report as it give a multi-perspective view on our work, and also questioned some details, answered during the conversation and will for sure be added in the report, too. I wasn't;t feeling confident about the report at first, as we were going in completely blind, but Dr. Naqaa's comments along with the project brief (which we now thankfully have on hand) have rejuvenated my desire to finish the project in high quality and exceeding standards. Our future plans also include a DWC visit this week, to go over the report, so my fingers are crossed in regards to our performance.
Overall, this course has been an experience. With alternating periods of doing nothing then doing everything, I feel like I could have managed my personal time better to alleviate some pressure during stressful times. Nevertheless, I am proud because I feel like I've done my due diligence towards my group, making sure to stay on top of things and never miss a deadline (despite missing a week of university). Although my procrastination problem persists, my collaborative and communicative skills have improved, with zero fights or conflicts throughout the entire semester. I also feel like my technical writing has gotten better, which is an understatement considering I knew nothing of it prior to the course. For the future, I would like to take other roles within any group I work in, the managerial one is too taxing. I just hope our efforts are rewarded, on both the tangible level (grades) and the abstract one (soft skills).
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Week 15 was exciting, although I was absent for most of it. We finalised and submitted our poster, a task I was especially cheerful about, as it felt like the pinnacle of the course (never mind that the presentation and report weren't done yet). We also submitted our third and final memo and met with Dr. Naqaa to go over everything so far, in an effort to guide the poster, presentation and technical report in the right direction. The talk about the transition from the problem statement to the technical report was especially helpful, considering the the former is basically incorporated into the latter, but keeping in mind the difference in audience (engineers) and purpose (call to action). As a group, we re-contextualized the problem to a real-life situation to make it more relatable and relevant, which in this case was the blockade imposed on Qatar. We were also advised by Dr. Naqaa to create a narrative in the presentation, to turn our work into story format in an effort to capture interest and maintain it. One more change we made was the decision matrix deciding on the solution, which in hindsight, was in a quite confusing format in the third memo. Even I lost track of how to read it, with the unnecessary weight and mislabeling of the average. We have (thankfully) revised this, and I like to think that the decision matrix in the technical report is at least more legible, although less colourful.
Weeks 12-14 started quite slow, but picked up speed at an exponential rate, and deadlines were upon me in the blink of an eye. I distinctly remember our first topic of discussion being ChatGPT. Personally, I detest ChatGPT. I was naive at first to its effect, simply thinking that everyone's quality writing improved a lot recently, and was honestly happy. Ignorance is bliss, as they say, but this false reality was quickly discarded in favour of a bleaker outlook of life: people are losing the ability to think for themselves. Don't get me wrong, I think ChatGPT is an excellent source for organising your content, independent learning, or even viewing examples, but many have started using for idea generation and development, which considering that the AI uses machine learning and a database of works by other people, strikes some pretty controversial questions on the ethics of using it in this way. This tied into our English class when we conducted an experiment: with Project 3 approaching, and the need for cover letters, we wanted to see if the AI can write an effective cover letter for a specific job advertisement using our resume. I struggled with ChatGPT, feeding it both the job ad and my resume multiple times, regenerating responses again in again, because everything that was produced sounded inauthentic. It was like the tool was simply filling in gaps with no consideration to the actual content of the task, which is to be expected of artificial intelligence. Further discussion in class indicated that I was not alone in my problem, and the general conclusion was that while it could provide some basis for the text, it cannot replace human writing, with both its implications and imperfections. We moved on to presenting our posters, of which I had the main responsibility. To be honest, the poster structure came to me in a dream when I was napping in the afternoon. I started directly planning it out with input from my team, but we did not really pay attention to the captions we wrote, electing to focus on the big picture for our first draft. We had a mini-poster preview in class, on which Dr. Naqaa commented that there needs to be less text and clearer organisation. We also had the opportunity to view the presentations and posters of the other ENGL-210 class, from which I learned a lot. Most questions seemed to be directed at their decision matrices, meaning that if nothing else, our group had to get that right. Organisation and time distribution seemed to be important too, with many groups focusing on the problem rather than the solution. To make my learning my concrete, I filled in a presentation review form for one of the presenting groups (which was my completely subjective opinion), which also helped me narrow down our foci for our own presentation as a group. Empty line for scribd pdf.
Week 11 marked the end of the beginning, and the beginning of the end. We received valuable comments from Dr. Naqaa on our first draft of the problem statement, and worked accordingly to complete the task of submitting the final draft. To be honest, I felt like our group lacked focus, and this was something mentioned in the comments, too. With a lack of underlying goal in the introduction, discussion on agriculture in the prehistoric, the current implementation of solutions anywhere but Qatar, and the mention of snow as a hazard to crops growing in Qatar, our group was simply not on the same page. As such, we redefined our goal and wrote a definitive sentence explaining the problem, and I took the initiative to meet each member individually to go over the minute details of their section in an effort to make it more focused and the overall text more cohesive. It seemed that the strategy of group comments and revised outlines failed us. To be honest, I felt overbearing, and it was unfortunate to have my concerns once again reaffirmed to me, but I felt like I had no other choice if our group wanted to submit quality work. I then went over the entire statement, making some changes for flow, but trying my hardest not to overshadow each member's individual voice. It was a role I wish I don't have to ever repeat. On a lighter note, Ms. Betsy once again visited our class, but this time to go over UX design how to make data visualisation effective. Some of the most glaring factors that your eye will catch and feel uncomfortable with, even if you aren't necessarily aware of it, are colour, whitespace, and size. There are also a multitude of other factors, such as alignment, margins, fonts, etc. Although the discussion gave me war flashbacks of the rainbow mess my ENGL-104 e-portfolio was (which you can see for yourself below), I was determined to do better in regard to my e-portfolio now, and go above and beyond for our group's presentation and poster, to make them as clear, concise, and cohesive as possible. Ms. Betsy also gave us a guideline on posters, a paper I keep to this day in my folder of precious documents. In addition to the submission of our completed first draft of the problem statement, and my first individual memo reflecting on select chapters from the book, this week featured a guest lecturer: Khalid Albaih, a Sudanese political cartoonist with a focus on civil rights activism and freelance journalism. While I can't say I've directly encountered any of his caricatures or articles, I do know about Doha Fashion Fridays from my friends' constant mention of it. His talk to us revolved around the combination of engineering and art, and how each of them supplements the other and elevates it to another level. I liked this outlook on engineering, as most stereotypes around my major tend to label me as a socially awkward nerd at best and apathetic robot at worst. He displayed a couple of his projects, of which was a swing that lights up beautifully when used, capturing the beauty of childhood innocence and playfulness, and passport tents displayed in the museum of contemporary art (MOCA). The latter art resonated with me with its message on immigration, where "a piece of paper determines our fate", a quote said by Khalid Albaih himself. Bringing such an important issue to the spotlight using engineering design principles showed me how creative engineering can be, breaking free from its stereotypical constraints of rigid maths or tedious physics. In class, we went over an article with the same topic, but focused more on the fields of engineering and arts themselves. The article delved more into the stereotypes imposed on the members and scholars of each field, and how that despite popular opinion, they are closer to two sides of the same coin than opposing domains, and collaboration here is an example of 'the whole is greater than the sum of its parts', which is a notion I have always believed in, whether consciously or subconsciously. On a lighter notes, this is why I make sure my engineering presentations are always aesthetically pleasing.
If I were to be completely candid, this week felt like the eye before the storm. In class, we started discussing the great, looming, elephant in the room: the problem statement. I initially felt pretty confident, given that the first memo helped us identify our problem, and the research that went into it formed the basis for our research in the statement, but as the classes went on and we met with Dr. Naqaa to go over our memo, I became less sure of myself. Nevertheless, life goes on and the world keeps spinning, and the approach I decided on taking with my team was breaking everything down. Smaller tasks seemed intimidating, something I'm sure every elementary school teacher has said a million times. This meant revisiting our messy whiteboard notes that looked more like doodles than an actual plan. It was at this stage I started considering the efficiency of our collaboration as a team. Instead of having each member write their entire part, and then make changes to it, would it not be better to start with the outline? Leaving constructive criticism on each other's idea development before actually starting the laborious and time-consuming process of research and writing seemed like a great idea. As such, we set a meeting, a formal one on zoom with a set agenda that required taking meeting minutes (no more half-baked chaotic whiteboard plans). I made heavy use of our previous reading from the book, and also referred to our second memo to remind me of how agendas and minutes work. Our resulting agenda was short and sweet: And the subsequent meeting minutes even more so. Everything felt more in-focus and organised after this meeting, a feat which I applaud my team and I on. This week, we revisited our role-play skills and worked on our second team memo. Due to it being spring break, we swiftly finished our task of pretending to be a company advising new employees on the most effective strategies for starting any collaborative project. The only hiccup we had came to the division of labor, as it was difficult to sort the sequential ideas into 4 separate, rigid parts, especially purely over text, but we made it work. Below is one of the of the first attempts we made (as I'm sure is obvious, it needed a lot of work). We ended up with the following division:
Although the group part of the task went by quickly, it was not smooth. Writing a document like this with 4 different people meant 4 different tones, and it was highlighted by the nature of the content. As both team manager and writing tutor, the lines between my roles started to blur. Most of my time on the document was spent editing spelling and grammar, rephrasing some sentences here and there for more clarity and substituting some words for a stronger effect. Eventually, after our first draft (an internal deadline), I decided to automate the process and asked my group members to use Grammarly before uploading each of their parts. Although I personally do not like using it, as I feel like it takes away from the character of the writer and any individuality there might've been, I realised that the priority here was completing a cohesive piece of writing, focusing more on following the structure and task requirements rather than maintain the 'sanctity' of it. This conclusion changed my outlook on the way my group was working, and my role within that collaboration, and I was seeing our work and class objectives in a new light. Deadlines. Other deadlines. And some more deadlines to sprinkle on top. This week was full of them, with the finalised team charter, refined grade complaint email, and our very first team memorandum too. The first task was easy, our group had already discussed everything, and it was simply a matter of confirming the document's contents. The second was task also went by smoothly, making some slight changes to sound less condescending (as was implied in the given feedback during a previous class, where Dr. Naqaa went over every pair's emails and left some helpful advice). However, the third task was an adventure, both the good and the bad. As a group, we had already pretty much known our top 3 problems to choose from following our jam board session, with the issues of the lack or arable land, single-use plastic bottles, and car overuse pretty much standing out from the start. However, the challenge lied in translating rough ideas into a cohesive memorandum, something none of us have ever written before in the context of technical writing (lab memo's were much simpler and more direct). We had a mini-brainstorming session for the criteria after a class, writing our notes on the whiteboard and taking a picture for later. Though a bit (very) messy, our ideas shine through in the sense that we wanted to be as holistic as possible in choosing each criterion, covering all the aspects that can be considered when choosing the problem as the topic and central focus of our project. As such, we also brainstormed some rough general solutions for each problem, in an effort to see if it is worth going through with the problem (no viable solution would make our efforts futile, in the long run). We ended our meeting with dividing our roles, and ended our week with submitting the memo. Our decision matrix ended up quite nice; we've come a long way from our whiteboard meeting notes.
This week, things got serious. Gone were the days of showing up to class empty-handed and leaving as I am (armed with a little more knowledge, though), replaced by the starting of our project, introduced through a series of DWC workshops on team work. I missed the first of them, and as a result was doubly invested in the next one. Our task involved preparing a breakfast for a family; multiple dishes were required, each with their own preparation time. Working with my group was really fun, going back and forth to agree on how to prioritise the food (cold eggs are not particularly delicious, but neither is burnt toast) and which tasks could be done simultaneously. We also got the opportunity to both share our view of the task and listen to other groups in class, which became an interesting lesson on perspective shaping our decisions. I would like to say that my task agreed on the order rather smoothly, as we all seemed to be open-minded when someone was making a good point, easily changing whatever was there initially.
Any newly discovered skills carried on into our actual assigned work, which started with our perusal of the Qatar National Vision to find our problem. We were all pretty much set on pursuing the environmental pillar, given that it overlapped all of our individual interests. As such, we generated quite a few, working on jam board to collect our ideas and assess them later. This week marked the beginning of our group work, something I was feeling simultaneously excited and apprehensive about, but thankfully leaned towards the former when finding out who my teammates for the rest of the semester were going to be. Our first order of business was selecting a team manager. Before coming to class, I had relegated myself to not pursuing the position, as although I felt like I could do a good job of it (I refuse to give less than 100% on any task, especially if it involves other people), I didn't want to overwhelm myself this semester; my extracurriculars were piling up and showed no signs of slowing down. Nevertheless, sitting in that chair, surrounded by that group of people, and in that classroom, I felt at ease, and thus found myself volunteering to fill the position. I still had some doubts, of course, as procrastination is practically a character trait of mine, and I knew that if I dared to slack off once, I might never go back to a routine, but sharing these concerns with my group and having them assure me that they would do their parts in handling the responsibility and not hesitate to tell me if I'm acting irresponsibly really did set my fears to rest. After settling that issue, we got started on the team charter. I will admit that I was a bit clueless at first, but quickly skimmed the guidelines in the book (Fig. 3.2) and got to work. My group took turns expressing some negative past experiences with collaborative work, and we agreed that we would do better than that. We also talked about our personal goals and concerns regarding ourselves. For example, I felt like I can be too pushy sometimes, and that my presentation skills need work (memorising doesn't come easy to me), Haya was worried about the research aspect, Racha was afraid her nerves may get the best of her when presenting, and Abdellatif stated that although his presentation skills have improved, he still needs to work on them. I believe this type of honesty is crucial for any team, as the whole point of group work is to work together; where team members can support each other's strengths and weaknesses alike. We ended our mini-session with discussing communication logistics and conflict resolution, two things we were all (thankfully) on the same page about. |