It has been 4 months since the first lesson of SES started. Over these 4 months, there were many topics covered, ranging from the different styles of management of companies in China and America to the cultural backgrounds of the two different societies. It was a lesson that had made me realise the importance of cultural intelligence.
The curriculum of SES was well planned. The first few topics had a specific scope, where we looked at case studies of the management styles of selected companies. Then, we moved on to broader topics such as the cultural context of China and the West, and whether it was possible or not for both societies to learn from each other to solve their respective societal problems. I personally feel that this allows us to understand the general picture more clearly as there will not be an information overload. It allows us to link the previous topics to the current topic and apply past knowledge to help us understand the current topic better. The curriculum was also well structured, with Term 1 focusing more on the societal aspects and Term 2 focusing more on the economic aspects. Also, the SES syllabus had certain similarities with the CSC module on the recent history of China, which allowed us to apply knowledge learnt from CSC into SES.
The mode of assessment was definitely something new to me, and up till now I still have certain difficulties facing SES. Contrary to my beliefs, SES did not force me to speak up more in class. I have seen active participation from some students in class, but there are also others like me who prefer to remain silent. Although I believe that remaining silent does not bring any benefit, I think that it is the fear of failure that prevents me from contributing to class discussion. I am afraid that when I speak up, my point would be invalid and others would laugh at me. Although this was not the case (except when I stated the obvious), there is still this fear in my heart, making me hesitate when I want to speak up. Oh, also I forgot to get a new set of sticks from Jack after I lost the original set. The reflective journals have also made me think really hard and apply my contextual knowledge to the issue.
Other than that, time management was also a major concern for me. At first, we had to go through all the readings given and bring our notes to class for discussion. Initially I thought that I would be able to finish the notes in a short amount of time. However, it took hours for me to actually formulate points from the articles and jot them down. This often resulted in incomplete notes or notes that were too brief. I tried to spend more time on preparing notes but sometimes I really could not pick out the key points in the articles. Luckily, our workload was lessened after Term 1 as the questions were distributed evenly amongst the students. This helped me to cope with the SES notes as I had to spend less time on making the SES notes and the time needed compared to before was easier to manage.
I feel that SES helps us to understand the way China and the West react to certain situations. As the economy of countries become more and more globalised, we cannot prevent ourselves from having work affiliations with Chinese or Western companies. This understanding not only allows me to be able to gain a better understanding of them, it also prevents me from accidentally causing cultural conflicts during interactions with other people with different cultural background. SES has also made me feel very curious about the cultures of different countries, as I have realised that actually obvious solutions to certain economic or social problems cannot be implemented in certain countries due to the cultural context of the country. I have learnt from this that there is no specific solution to address problems because what might work out in one country might not be able to work out in another country. In my opinion, I think that it is not the actual syllabus that will really benefit us in the future, but rather the skills that we acquire during the process of learning SES, such as researching skills, synthesis of ideas with past knowledge, taking more than one perspective to solve a problem etc. These problem solving skills will be of great use in the future as I will definitely be doing more research and problem solving in the future which requires the usage of such skills.
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