Reader Response - Final

In the article, “Developing Sustainable Infrastructure in New Cities”, Cho (2014) states that sustainability needs to be ranked first for cities to adapt to the extreme urban context in the 21^st century. The author mentions that “Envision Sustainability Rating System” is a pioneering rating system designed to monitor the performance of an infrastructure through the ability, flexibility and the usefulness to last from a present project. The writer states that both Mexico and Peru are using sustainable techniques to construct their highway development projects that have been evaluated with the Envision Rating System, which has served the community well by overcoming these challenges such as “rising energy prices, water shortages, traffic congestion and etc.” At the same time, as the member of the fellowship, the writer plans to use the Envision Rating System for the upcoming Impact King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) Project in order to achieve a holistic vision for sustainable infrastructural development in the new city.

There are both pros and cons for using the Envision Sustainability Rating System. In the article, Cho gives the reader a basis understanding of the Envision Rating System is being implemented throughout the Mexico and Peru Projects. However she could give a more complete description could have enhanced our understanding of the value of using this rating system and also the challenges that citizens of the country will be facing during the process of developing the on infrastructure.

Envision Sustainability consists of two phases. Before starting on a project, there will be an Envision checklist for the users, helping users to get familiar with the sustainability aspect of the infrastructure project and design. The checklist consists of five categories and fourteen subcategories of a series of Yes/No question based on how the award is being awarded. Later on, the project will be further review by the ISI verifiers. The verifier is an independent, third party that works with the ENV SP to validate their assessment of a project.

In order to get awarded for the Envision, the project have to meet 60 sustainability criteria which is divided into five sections, namely Quality of life, Leadership, Resource Allocation, Natural world and Climate and Risk.

During the construction of infrastructure projects, I believe that new cities might also face impacts such as natural habitats, agriculture and logging is being destroyed. For example, neighboring country such as Cambodia rely heavily on their agriculture for living. According to Perowne (2003), Agriculture accounted for 50% of GDP for Cambodia economy and employed approximately 85% of the work force. Hence, with the increase in developments, agriculture will be destroyed. In spite of these, the Envision Rating Systems help to minimize the negative impact during the planning stage where it could further persuade the locals that the system will be beneficial to them.

In conclusion, Envision Sustainability Rating System can be a good approach in the development of projects enhancing the quality of life of communities and serve the citizen better. However, I also believed that Envision Sustainability Rating System could be further elaborate in Cho’s article to give readers a better understanding of the Envision Sustainability Rating System.

References

Institute For Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI). (n.d.). Envision Sustainable Infrastructure Rating System. Retrieved from https://www.sustainableinfrastructure.org/rating/

Cho, H. (2014, December 17). Developing Sustainable Infrastructure in New Cities. Retrieved from http://www.newcitiesfoundation.org/evaluating-sustainable-infrastructure-development-new-cities/

Perowne, C. (2003, March). The New Agriculturist, Country profile – Cambodia. Retrieved from http://www.new-ag.info/en/country/profile.php?a=860

The Role of Peer and Tutor Feedback

Feedbacks is essential tool throughout a person's life, it brings about the change in the recipient's behavior. Feedbacks from peers and lecturers have given me the opportunity to further improve myself. Writing an essay is easy, however without feedbacks, I will not be able to understand and know where exactly my mistakes are. 

In Effective Communication class, we started off with writing about our personal experience and later proceed further on to report writing. At the same time we are required to give feedbacks on our peers work in order to help them further improve in their essay. However, as my writing skills wasn't that good, I was not confident in giving feedbacks to my peers as I thought that I might correct them wrongly. Nevertheless, I went further to research on how feedbacks are being given and I tried giving my peers feedbacks on their essay. Later I realized that by giving feedback to others, I am able to learn from their mistakes and even helping me to improve on my writing skills. 


Writing a proper report is an essential tool in SIT. Regardless of any modules such as Mathematics or Engineering Applications Module, we are still required to produce report writings on our projects. The skills that I have learnt in Effective Communication had shown to be beneficial to me, I not only improve on my writing skills, and it also improves on my language skills such as the grammar and vocabulary usage. In Addition by improving my language skills, it further help to improve on my presentation skills as I am much more confident in the way I speak and present myself. It also taught me on how a proper report is being written from the formatting of the report to the referencing and citation style of a report. Throughout the course, I believe I had a huge improvement in my writing as compared to how I had written in the past.

The person who influenced me - MDM YEO

When I was asked to write about the person who influenced me, the first person that came into my mind was a teacher of mine during secondary school days. I was from Temasek Secondary School, it was considered one of the good schools in the east area. However, when I entered secondary school, my rebellious teenage days begin. 

My parents used to be very strict on me, even with the friends that I hang out with. They make sure I report to them wherever I go and whomever I was with. Nevertheless, I listened to them and used to be a very good student that turn up for school on time and score well in class as I have tuitions for almost every subjects I have in school. 

However, as time goes by, I didn't like the way they handle me, thus i started to rebel against my parents. I started skipping school and tuitions in school uniform and hang out with boys that are 3 years older in cyber gaming lan shops around school. Also, often return home as late as 11pm where my parents would often spam call me every single minute to check on me and I would usually lie to them that I am having tuition lessons. Life like this goes on continuously from mid of secondary 1 to secondary 3 where my results went down hill from being the top few in class to scoring last in class every semester. My parents receive calls from my teachers almost every school term telling them how badly I fair in class but it didn't affected me at all. During those days, I picked up smoking and after my classmates found out, I was being hated by them and I have no friends in school which makes life in school miserable thus I hated school a lot which makes me want to skip school more often.

During secondary 3, I had a very nice form teacher, Mdm Yeo. Mdm Yeo taught me Principle of Accounts (POA) and her lessons were very interesting. I began to like school and always turned up for school during the days when there is her lesson even though I have no friends in class. POA was the only subject that I could score an A whereas the rest will be either a D or a F grade. She knew my results were bad and often gave me counselling sessions where she would share with me about her life stories and gave me additional one to one consultation. Hence, I looked up to her and take her words seriously and started going to school everyday. Nevertheless, at my last semester of secondary 3, when Mdm Yeo handed me my report book, she told me "You can definitely do better!" I opened up the report book, looking forward to check for the new class status, but I was devastated when I saw the sentence "retained secondary 3". I started crying to myself as I thought that since I've been attending school , I will be able to get a promotion. I wasn't expecting a retain written on it. I went home, handed my mum the report book, when she looked at it, she had no expression but i could feel that she was very disappointed. During the night, I peeped into her room, I saw her crying to my dad telling him that she doesn't know how to handle me anymore. The scene was so disheartening that I could remember it vividly in my mind.

I began to feel very guilty and brought my report book to Mdm Yeo and asked if she could help me. Unexpectedly, her replied was "Yes, but you must promised me to start studying and do well in class." That was the day where, I woke up from my stupidness and stop being rebellious. Few days later, Mdm Yeo, the Principle and I had a meeting and they agreed to promoting me where the only condition was do well in my upcoming N levels. I agreed to it and started studying very hard during my secondary 4 for my N levels. Unexpectedly, I achieved to be the top 10 in school from my N levels. Tears of joy instantly row down my cheeks when I saw my name flashing on the visualiser in the theatre. 

Mdm Yeo is just like a mother to me, she was there for me during my lowest point in school. I looked up to her and admires her patience that she had given me. Without her, I wouldn't be myself today or even entering a university right now. Therefore, she had always been a person who had influence me to do well for my studies. I could never be more grateful for having her for treating me like her own children.

Thank you Mdm Yeo.

Oral Presentation Reflection

On the 09/11/2015, Monday, my team and I gave a oral presentation to address the current traffic congestion in Singapore. At the same time, we came out with solutions to solve this issue. Our presentation was about introducing car-sharing to Singapore where people gets to use a car without owning a car. They car is basically a tap&go car which is being shared by the public.

My team has prepared the slides a week in advanced. Also, two days before the presentation, we have been going through times of mock presentations to ensure that the flow is smooth. Not only practicing, we make use of what we have learnt in class and evaluate on one another presentation, making sure that the presenter articulates clearly for everyone to hear and also the proper grammar tenses. 

During the presentation, I was in charge of the introduction and background. Before the presentation, I was feeling rather confident with what I am going to say as I have practiced it a few times beforehand. However, when standing in front of the crowd, I started to feel nervous and stutter a little during the first part. Slowly, after the first slide, my confidence level starts to rise. I kept in mind to have eye contact with my audience and I felt that I did a pretty good job at it. Nevertheless, I felt that my presentation wasn't passionate enough due to my nervousness. 

Overall, I felt that the team has did a pretty good job in the presentation as everyone of have been very corporative. Moreover, this presentation has certainly boost my confidence in presenting and also taught me further in preparing the presentation slides.