12. Semester Synthesis

This semester we focused on how to improve oral communication skills and how to have successful interactions with others.

I’d say one of the biggest points we learned was important was how to increase our Emotional Intelligence by working on self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skill. Most successful leaders have high emotional intelligence, so it is clearly a very important trait to practice. Also it is an especially important takeaway lesson for me because as a naturally sensitive and emotional person, I have often been negatively impacted by my emotions in various aspects of my life. My emotions have clouded my ability to think rationally before and raising my Emotional Intelligence Quotient will help me exercise my emotions to serve me rather than hinder me in the future.

Although we as sophomores may think that job interviews are far off, time passes quicker than we think and it is always better to start preparing earlier rather than later. One reason why I enjoyed this course was because it forced us to begin preparing for job interviews. Jeff Kudisch’s talk about how to interact with employers was beneficial because we learned how to prepare for an interview as well as questions to ask afterwards and watch the body language we show employers. Communication is not only about public speaking, but it also encompasses knowing how to communicate effectively one on one.

Overall, I thought the course was pretty effective in teaching us communication skills. My favorite part was the multiple guest speakers we had. Each one was clearly very skilled at public speaking and knew exactly what he was talking about. I also liked how each one talked about a different skill – Jeff Kudisch talked about interview skills, Ira talked about how to most effectively give speeches and build your personal brand, and Dan Parsons gave a more detailed overview of how to win friends and influence people through communication. Each one of these speakers had different value to add to our journey in learning about communication in this class.

Communication will help me be more successful in the future because in the industry that I am interested in, technology consulting, it is highly crucial to be skilled at talking to clients. Communication allows me to better understand them and their needs and see what kind of value I can add to their problem. Without being able to communicate effectively, my clients wouldn’t be able to trust me as much and I wouldn’t be able to connect personally and professionally with them. I will also definitely be required to give presentations to colleagues and bosses and these speeches will most likely be in front of many people so being good at giving speeches is not only a preference, but a necessity.