Blog post #6 Xin Yu's biodata

I am currently pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Life Sciences with concentration in Biomedical Science from National University of Singapore. With strong interest in drug research, I aspire to become a drug researcher in the near future, embracing the ambition of discovery of cures for the incurable diseases.

I am also passionate about travelling and backpacking, and have been to regional places like Taiwan, Indonesia and others in hope of discovering of cultures and lifestyles different from that of the Singaporean urban lifestyle. I am also embarking on a Summer programme to Australia to experience life as an exchange student, out of my usual comfort zone. Travelling not only broadens my horizons, it also motivates me to develop a willingness to embrace differences in people and cultures, and be passionate about life.

Volunteering also nurtures my passion for life. I volunteer in my free time, caring for the people I believe are underprivileged in society. As a member of the NUS community service club, I am able to make friends who have a slight disability in their intellect and some the elderly. My volunteering experience has enhanced by EQ such that I am a more sensitive and tolerant person.

I also enjoy music and play the Chinese instrument, Pipa from my Secondary School and Junior College days

Blog post #5 Survey project reflections

Team work of trying to save the leaning tower from collapse

Reflecting back on my experience on report writing, I felt that it was definitely an enriching experience. For this module, there are a lot of tight datelines that we have to adhere to. Assignments like minutes for the meeting, project proposals, project survey drafts have to be finished within a short time frame and that requires adequate communication and cooperation of my group mates. Slowly, I found out that I was having trouble with getting sufficient cooperation from one of my team mate due to insufficient communication and very different styles of working.


During the process of report writing, I learnt that having clear communication with my team mates is not easy. It is important to be diplomatic and control my emotions when I am working with my team mates, even when conflicts occur. I also learnt to be firm and phrase my ideas logically such that I can convince both my teamates and readers of the report that my proposal is persuasive.

Building interpersonal relationships in a team is crucial as makes communication easier for work matters. Having small talks with my team mates helps in bonding of team members and build interpersonal relationships. For my team, we voice out any disagreements such that negative emotions do not accumulate causing bad relationship to develop.

An important lesson learnt from being a team player was that I must be open to ideas from my other team mates, even though I do not agree with them. During the report writing process, my team mate and I have a rather different style of working and that resulted in some conflicts which we voiced out and tried to resolve. As a team player, it is also important to strive to be a consistent and perform the best of my abilities. If I do not give concerted efforts at my work, my team members are likely to be affected by it and this may drag the team down. It is therefore important for each of us to provide our own expertise in the project, such that we can achieve much more as a team.

In this project, research was mainly done via a survey instead of the usual online research in lab reports. For my group, it was not an easy task as we had two batches of survey to be disseminated to the professors and students. We faced difficulty in getting the professors to do our survey by sending emails and had to do so face to face. I learnt that we must always have a back up plan and be flexible in dealing with our work. I also learnt that it is not easy to carry out a survey and that all team members have to work hard in disseminating the survey forms such that analysis of results can be done.

I learnt to write report succintly and effectively such that my message can be conveyed clearly through the report. I also learnt to support my data with graphs and references such reliability can be reflected in my report. I also learnt to phrase my arguments in a logical and cohesive manner such that it is compelling and will be able to convince the reader.

I would hope that there would be more communication and bonding such that stronger interpersonal relationships can be built among my team mates such that we can all enjoy the process of working together and emerge as effective communicators. Also, I would hope that a everyone in the group can have a positive and consistent working attitude in the oral presentation to come, ensuring that our project done can be of substance and style.