PMP class visits Granville Island

The Famous Granville Bridge

The PreMasters Program students visited Granville Island for a field study tour. The students arrived at about two thirty in the afternoon after their morning class in the SFU Burnaby campus. I was there waiting for them since one thirty and due to some unforeseen incident earlier that caused some road closure, the PMP students were held up by the temporary traffic congestion. And somehow there were also a lot more people than usual on Granville Island for a Thursday afternoon. May be a cruise ship on the way to Alaska has just berthed for a temporary stop.

PMP Students in Granville Island

Anyway, I thought the crowd were mostly tourists and exchanged students from all over the world. I gave the PMP students some instructions and shared with them the significance of the case study. After about five minutes with them, I allow them to be on their way with their team mates to conduct the research and collect information. This was the first visit for some of the PMP students and an opportunity to learn about the tourism industry in British Columbia and Vancouver in general. This is also their fourth field study assignment before the semester ends in the middle of August.

Boat Docks on Granville Island

The students' assignment were fairly simple. The PMP students were supposed to practice their interview and communication skills, do their one minute pitches (whenever possible) which they have practiced in their communication class. Then, look at the surrounding businesses in general and the tourism industry as a whole from different view points, namely policy makers, business owners and the consumer. They must think in a critical manner and evaluate every possible scenario on the opportunities and future development of this tourism industry. They must also assumed the role of a tourism consultant and start with a clear objective.

Week of Presentations

Students Preparing for Presentation

This week I have all of the undergraduate classes which I am teaching this semester lined up for team presentations. The presentations started on the first day of week twelve with the Monday morning BUS237 Section 3 class. Early in the semester, the students were assigned to propose several topics of their choice from any topic within the field of Management Information Systems. After their initial topic research, they have to send me a list of their topic choices. And then, I would determine which would be the most suitable topic from the three they proposed.

Class Presentations

The topic approval would usually take place some time in week four of the semester. Once the topics have been announced, students can start immediately with tasks assignment and to gather more information.

They have the rest of the semester to continue with the research, tabulate data and interpret the results. There is no fixed format for the students to follow but they can only use Microsoft Office Power Point Presentation as a medium in their presentations. The final delivery which always takes place in week twelve of each semester consist of oral and slide presentations.

Final Group Assignment

From observations, I have come to understand that majority of students never use the entire period of time to work on their preparations but only start working on their presentations about two weeks before due date. The better prepared teams usually prepare much earlier.

Each semester, depending on the number of sections I am teaching, I usually listen to approximately twenty four to thirty presentations.

Q&A Session

If I am assigned graduate classes to teach that same semester, I would have a lot more presentations to observe. Therefore, during week twelve, I am especially busy with students' presentations. Following all these presentations, I still have to mark their reports and slide presentations. Generally, the students do well in the presentations as they would have gone through several lessons on presentation techniques covering verbal, non-verbal, and slide presentations.

Ultimate Leadership Workshop III

The Expedition Leaders

The Series of Ultimate Leadership Workshop finally came to the end. We conducted our final workshop today. We started at approximately eight thirty in the morning to set up the material, tools and room layout for the day. As we were about done with the room layout, we were requested to move the venue to another room as the room that we had set up in were assigned for a math exam. So, we quickly got all the things together and with the help of the participants went to the correct room to reset for the workshop.

Collaborative Working Environments

Then, we got started with the workshop at about ten minutes after nine. I began with introducing the theme for today's workshop which was, "The Search for The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine". And our destination was the historical town of Barkerville in the Cariboo Mountains where it was actually famous for gold mining and prospecting for the precious metal. The actual town still existed until today but it is preserved as a designated historical site that is opened to visitors. The goal of the participants was to find the gold mine and mine for gold in a simulated exercise that would take them through a twenty day expedition.

Experiential Learning Exercise

The journey to the mine would not be simple as there will be challenges, such as weather, terrain conditions, and unexpected natural disasters.

The participants were grouped into teams of fives or sixes. And we had enough students to form five teams in the simulated expedition that would take them through twenty days, to and back from the lost Dutchman's gold mine. In this exercise, the participants will learn to collaborate, strategize, plan and work as a team to realize their goal.

Planning the Expedition

Other than just fun and participation, the students learned to negotiate, forecast and budget, manage, and executing their plans. This particular experiential learning exercise has been used in many of my team building and collaborative activities to successfully simulate real life collaborative working environments. Before I brought the exercise to a conclusion I engaged the students in a thirty minute brainstorming session which was an opportunity for the students to share their thoughts and to discuss about the skills they have learned and practiced.

Team Work

Conducting brainstorming session right after a high energy and exciting activity like the search for the Dutchman's gold mine, is a powerful learning method for students to review their own decision making process and the results that they have accomplished from their actions. Overall, these activities have been a great opportunity to encouraged student participation, and to learn about collaboration and leadership.

FIC Summer 2016 Badminton Tournament

The Men's Doubles First Round

I was involved in the Fraser International College Summer 2016 Badminton Tournament which attracted twenty two participants from across the Fraser International College community. This summer's tournament was again hosted in the SFU recreation center on the Burnaby campus. The badminton competitions were grouped into four divisions, namely women's singles, women's doubles, men's singles and men's doubles. The first round matches got underway at about six o'clock after the participants were duly signed-in at approximately five thirty.

Women's Singles First Round

In the women's division, the players were kind of even on skills, especially on their level of badminton playing skills. But in the men's competition, the level of playing skills were somewhat different. There were a small group with slightly more advance playing skills. And a larger majority that were equal in their skills.

But most of the players have badminton playing experience. Therefore, the organizers did not have to spend much time explaining the basic rules of badminton. Anyway, we did emphasized on the need for healthy sportsmanship and the importance of having fun to all the players before the start of the competitions. This summer's badminton tournament was organized and managed by Andre Chiu, an alumni of FIC who is now pursuing an undergraduate degree in Environmental Science at Simon Fraser University.

The Men's Doubles Winner

He had a supportive team of volunteers to help with running the event. Both Dr. Logan Masilamani and I were present throughout the event. And, we were the faculty sponsors for the FIC summer 2016 badminton tournament. We also participated and took the opportunity to interact with most of the students on and off the courts. Immediately after the men's singles final, we followed with the awards ceremony. Dr. Logan and I gave away the prizes to the top three winners of each category. We left the gym at about eight o'clock.

Study Methods: How to Study for Exams

Talking about Study Methods

Every semester I would conduct this workshop as part of the support to the many international students that were involved in my mentorship program group. I started this workshop about two years ago for the benefit of the students that were enrolled in my classes but later realized that the workshop would be useful for the entire international student community. So, I opened the workshop's  participation to everyone that was interested to learn how to study for exams. Words got around and students that followed my advice really benefitted from the tips I shared in the workshop. Today, we had a little more than thirty students that came to the workshop voluntarily.

How to study for exams

In the workshop, I also spoke about my personal experiences when I was an undergraduate student and how I would prepare for exams. I strictly followed a step-by-step plan that I have learned during my days in the military school. These same steps have allowed me to enjoy both my student life and succeed in my studies with distinctions. No matter how many times I have conducted this workshop and to as many students, experience has shown that only a handful of students could and were willing to adopt a strict plan. Even during the days as an undergraduate student, there were only a few among my course mates that were willing to adopt a plan and following the plan strictly.

Sharing Experiences

Naturally, people resist change. We rather do the things and surround ourselves with the people that we were familiar with. We are afraid of change or the unknown. We always seek to do the things that are most comfortable to us. To give further encouragement to the students attending the workshop, I focused simplicity and understanding the students' priority. The talk basically focuses on the three fundamental keys to succeed in exams and further elaborated on the importance of following a step-by-step plan. My goal was to make the students realized the importance of managing their own expectations and setting the right priority.

PMP students' field study of Launch Academy

Visit Launch Academy

The Pre Master Program students visited Launch Academy. A business start-up incubator for aspiring entrepreneurs. The academy focuses on learning and developing entrepreneurship covering product creation, the know-how on start-ups, and understanding market tools of entrepreneurship. We were there for about an hour to learn about the different programs offered at Launch Academy and their success accomplishments. The initial purpose of the visit to Launch Academy was to exposed the PMP students to a re-emerging industry that is thriving in Vancouver. There is actually a growing demand in entrepreneurship, and for the tech related market tools and the need for specialized expertise between the entrepreneur and the market.

Summer 2016 PMP Class

Entrepreneurship may even be as old as human civilization itself but the market tools and specialized skills required to build a successful enterprise has changed significantly. The market tools used in entrepreneurship today have taken a leap forward and have kept pace with the present advancement in technology. So, in order to keep up with these changes, the skills and experience required too has to change. The entrepreneurs today are much younger than the entrepreneurs a generation before. The advancement in technology has created new understanding, new markets, new tools and new studies. Therefore, there is a growing demand for modern and younger entrepreneurs to understand the needs for the right market tools that make enterprises succeed today. Launch Academy is providing space, expertise, and support to modern entrepreneurs to shorten their learning time and take their product to market faster.

Optimizing Career Prospects with An Awesome LinkedIn Profile

LinkedIn Seminar

I conducted a one hour seminar on LinkedIn during the mid day hour break period in Discovery 1, SFU today. The title of the seminar was, "How to Optimize Your Career Prospects with An Awesome LinkedIn Profile". This seminar was scheduled sometime back in May but due to my tight schedule during the beginning of the semester, there were no promotions done for the seminar. In spite of that, the seminar managed to attract about twenty students.

Sharing Tips on LinkedIn

In the seminar, I shared some of the key points about LinkedIn and how to optimize on LinkedIn's high traffic by using specific keywords to build an awesome online resume. With over four hundred million account members, LinkedIn is the third most popular social network site in the world today. I have introduced this LinkedIn seminar to Fraser International College's international students about four semesters ago and have been receiving good responds and reviews for the seminar.

Another Section of Participants

This is an opportunity for the international students at FIC to learn and build their profile early. Learning to use the features and categories provided in the LinkedIn profile setup to build a resounding personal resume. Establishing the need for Canadian work experience, volunteer work, leadership skills, extracurricular activities, association with groups, networking, and academic accomplishments.

Celebrating Canada Day 2016

Canada Day Zumba

I celebrated Canada Day with the family and friends over the long weekend. Early in the morning on Canada Day, I went to New Westminster' Riverside Walk for the festivities and watched a group of dancers doing the Zumba dance. There were some great weather over the weekend and was just right for these kind of outdoor activities. Spent about an hour there and then proceeded to Edmund's Community Center to participate in another much bigger Canada Day celebration.

Canada Day

We met with some friends and stayed a little longer at Edmund's Community Center than in New Westminster. Over there, we had some cakes and samosa for lunch. The crowd at the Edmund's Community was also much larger than the crowd over at the Riverside Walk venue. Canada Day is being celebrated everywhere, in as many cities throughout the country. I just want to be part of the celebration.

Canada Day in Edmunds

Then, on Saturday, we organized a cookout with some friends at a nearby park. The event started at about four o'clock in the afternoon and only ended at around nine thirty five in the evening. At about thirty minutes into the event, majority of the invited guests have arrived. We had so much food to eat at the event because the event was not only a cookout get together but has turned into a potluck instead. And as planned, I brought my outdoor stove to the cookout and fried one of the famous Malaysian noodle cuisine for everybody.