SHINE Workshops

Emotional Intelligence

3 March 2015

After listening to a short talk, we sketched a portrait of ourselves. The portrait is then randomly given to another participant of the workshop. Each participant received one portrait of another participant and judge that single person's personality based on it by writing down three key words.

This activity clearly gives a message that emotions and personality traits could not be judged accurately via physical means. It also shows that perception of every individual person is different. What you think of yourself is also different from the impression of others towards you.

From the activities done in this workshop, I learnt that every individual is different, especially in the emotional sense. The 'sensitive line' varies from one person to another. It matters in the psychological concept of perception. Emotional intelligence is the capacity for knowing and understanding feelings of others and ourselves. It is important as we deal with it in our daily lives. Positive emotional intelligence contributes many favourable outcomes as it increases satisfaction and contentment. I learnt that in order to achieve high emotional intelligence, one must eliminate his or her ego, which is easier said than done.

Emotions tend to spread from a single person to surrounding people. It is called the 'Ripple Effect'. Through this workshop, I learnt the importance of managing one's emotions as it affects more things that I could possibly imagine. Good management of emotions is a vital skill as it brings out the best of a person or a group, helping people to achieve goals and indirectly creating a better community.

Switching Up Your Creativity

3 March 2015

In this workshop, we listened a talk about how to be creative. Useful tools for creativity were taught to us. Among them were the 'random words idea generation tool' which is coming up with associations based on key words and spark solutions to problems by expanding the ideas. The 'analogy technique' bridges ideas and connects between ideas and worlds that seem disconnected or unrelated. Also, useful tips were shared to us in this workshop. In order to become an expert by being creative, we must be proactive in gaining experience and knowledge. Observing the environment is also helpful in increasing creativity as noticing patterns in the universe can aid us in making connections of concepts. Lastly, we were told that in order to be creative, we need to combine ideas of multiple individuals, step out of our comfort zones, avoid cliches and have fun!

After the talk, participants were divided into three groups, each has its own task. For my group, we were given a mock business project. The stationery company Faber-Castell is celebrating its 150th anniversary. We, imagining ourselves as members running a cake and desert company, need to collaborate with them by utilizing our expertise. After a group discussion, we combined our ideas and came out with a comprehensive plan. Next, it was presented in the workshop. This activity is highly interactive and it really switches up our creativity by making our creative juices flowing. I enjoyed this workshop a lot.

Our idea expansion

As an architecture student, creativity is essential. The group activity and presentation resembled the group discussions and tutorial sessions conducted in class. I treat it as a simple practice. It was also a great experience interacting with participants from other schools whom I had never met. My network of friends expanded and also my horizons.

Managing Stress

10 March 2015

Conducted by Ms Venus Choong, this workshop is also known as 'The Art of Taking Care of Oneself'. First, we were given a mock situation where 5 things happen simultaneously. Next, we discuss which problems should we solve first according to priority. It was clearly shown that every person view priorities differently.

Stress is the response to a condition that threatens or challenges a person and requires some sort of adaptation and adjustment. There are many ways to counter stress and reduce them. Stress reduction methods such as breathing exercises, regular workouts, proper nutrition and time management can help in decreasing the amount of stress in ourselves. Also, it is important to think of the views of others towards the same problem we are facing. Stress can also be reduced by viewing multiple perceptions and receiving group social support from peers. Mindfulness, which means paying attention and be aware of the conscious mind, can serve as a good technique to reduce stress.

As an architecture student, I am used to stressful situations such as having many simultaneous assignments and approaching deadlines. Attending this workshop gave me useful suggestions on ways to deal with stress as the new semester will start soon.

Envisioning Success

5 March 2015

Success is the accomplishment of an aim or a purpose. It is what most of us want in our lives. In the handouts given in the workshop, we were required to list out words and ideas associated with success. The ones I wrote down were wealth, health, spiritual enlightenment, legacy, achievements and fulfilled dreams. As everyone's view of success is different from one another, no two person's path to success is the same. However, successful people have many similar qualities or attributes. Among their traits are being committed, diligent, and wise in utilizing their resources.

Next, participants were divided into multiple groups. We were to discuss and solve the problem given in a mock situation. We imagine ourselves to be in the distant future, where we are a group of NASA selection committees responsible for choosing a team to travel to a new habitable planet, much like Earth and set up a new society there. We were given a list of 16 candidates, each with their own strengths, potential contributions and weaknesses. However, only 5 of them are to be shortlisted for the trip. Discussions were made among our group to finalize our decision. After that, each group presented their decision and justifications. We found that each group came out with a different list.

From this activity, we can conclude that every person have different opinions on the definition of being successful. For instance, some people might value success in health more than success in wealth. Some might find success as a whole community possess higher value compared to individual success. Success depends on ourselves as we are our own key motivators. However, group effort and cooperation must not be neglected in order to achieve success as no man is an island. Every single individual is reliant on one another, filling the gaps in the traits, experience and abilities of one another.

Our team's proposal

Self Motivation

10 March 2015

Motivating ourselves. This is easier said than done. We get motivated by doing things, not just thinking about them. Told to us in the given talk, there are 4 key steps in making us motivated, which are - Energy, Mind, Goal, and Enjoyable. First and foremost, we have to set ourselves a higher energy level to make ourselves motivated. The highest energy level makes us explorers, highly motivated, eager to learn and wanting to do the best. Next, we need to set a correct mind set. By exciting ourselves by participating in activities actively, we will reach the path of energetic engagement.

The activity done in this workshop is to design our own business card, showing what we foresee about ourselves in a few years' time, which I found it to be fun.

This business card will serve as a clear goal of what we want to achieve in the near future. Last but not least, we must enjoy what we do to keep ourselves motivated. When something is enjoyable, we are more likely to do it.

After this activity, I am reminded that whatever I learnt in life must be put into practice. Teamwork can also keep us motivated and help us achieve learning objectives.

Getting Into The Rhythm Of Change

13 March 2015

"To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often." This is a quote by the late Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Change is inevitable in all our lives. The only thing constant in the universe is change. Hence, we must be always prepared for it. We should not be afraid of change, we must embrace it. In this workshop, we learnt that change can be classified into multiple categories, biological, psychological, social, political and global. To understand more about change and how it reflected on ourselves, a simple exercise was done. In the form of a chart, we noted about the good and distress times and events of our lives. We cannot change the past, but we need to reflect on the choices we had made when we encounter change back then in the past.

Next, each of us identified one recent circumstance in our lives that we cannot change and how can we change the way we respond to it. In our lives, we must try to transform some situations that seems unfavourable to us into something positive to us. Therefore, change must be done.

The last activity done in this workshop is the 'Marshmallow Challenge'. However, this activity is unlike any other 'Marshmallow Challenge'. The marshmallows and spaghetti sticks were used as objects of exchange with values instead of other uses. Each group of 4 were given equal amounts of marshmallows and spaghetti sticks.

To win, we must get 5 marshmallows of the same colour or 10 taped spaghetti stocks through exchanging with objects of similar values from other teams. The team receiving the offer has two options: deal or no deal. After about 7 rounds into the game, the unexpected happened. The values of some of the objects dropped. Therefore, all our strategies changed. In the next few rounds, wildcards were given to us, each with their own function. Hence, more deception is aroused. The most unthinkable change happened when one of the players of the team is swapped with another team.

My team and I

The game taught us a lesson that we must be aware of the possibilities of change in our lives. It reminded us on the fact that we should use their resources wisely, make wise decisions and be adaptable to change. Lastly, we watched an animated video regarding this topic.

Change is constant and unavoidable. We should not stop when it comes to transforming and improving ourselves.