Day 5

The highlight of today would have to be the leadership race.

One of the major instructions was that we could not bring any of our mobile devices such as our smart phones. Being someone who relies heavily on my smart phone, I initially dreaded the thought of not being able to have my phone for about 4 hours. Call it separation anxiety, I wouldn’t disagree.

Having attended many other leadership courses in the past, I thought it would be just like the ones in the past. I was just looking forward to the amazing race portion of the leadership course which seemed most exciting to me.

However, after going through what was thought during the leadership course, I felt that almost everything thought was very relevant to me as an undergraduate student. Simple things like a self-introduction seemed so important after Prof Zachary pointed out the importance of being confident and making a positive first-impression. I would not have placed much thought into such gestures before this. I believe that one of the more striking things that Prof Zachary pointed out was that we were no longer children and we had to be more responsible with how we present ourselves to others.

The amazing race was another fun and exciting experience. All we had were clues and we had to find out the different location check points to go to. An additional challenge was that we were only allowed to take transportation once throughout the whole duration.

I believe that the team dynamics of my group was really on point. Everyone contributed in their small little way and there was no one dominating person who constantly led the way. We each took turns to share our suggestions and made sure that no one in the team was left out. (SHOUT OUT TO MY AMAAAZZING TEAM). The amount of cooperation that we had during the amazing race was truly the reason we won the amazing race in the end. We could not have done it without any one person in the team.

One key takeaway from the entire leadership exercise was that we should be more mindful to not only our own leadership style but also the leadership styles of others within the team. I feel that it is important for us to adapt and change our leadership or management styles so that we can more effectively contribute to the success of the team.

Since it was our last day to explore Chiang Mai, my group and I decided to visit the Huay Keaw Waterfall.

The waterfall was really peaceful as there was not many people there at that time. The view was really nice and it was not something that we could see in Singapore. Climbing the waterfall (yes, it was pretty dangerous) was fun. I felt like I got to explore more of the waterfall by being in it, rather than watching it from the sides. I really had lots of fun exploring the place with my fellow team mates and I would definitely try to include more chances to explore nature whenever I have the chance to travel in the future.