Author: Winston Song, China

My first trimester ended with a short but relaxing holiday to Phuket, Thailand. That refreshed me
enough to look forward to the second trimester, where school life is supposed to be more
dynamic, with lots more interactions with my classmates and the courses more functional.

True enough, before my classes officially begin on Thursday, I have already received an email
from our Decision Making and Control course professor, telling us to submit presentation slides
for a case study by Tuesday. Yes, we have to submit our homework before the course even
begins!

We were already divided into groups and each group is to prepare a 10 page powerpoint
summary of the said case study. As part of easy facilitation, we are instructed to make use of
the Google Wave communication tool, so that both part-time and full-time students would be
able to effortlessly manage a project without being physically together. (How brilliant!)

Immediately, things were executed; the work was evenly divided amongst my team members,
and using Google Wave, we were able to effectively communicate and work with available
content and resources, making it a live document up until we were ready to submit it.

Just a few hours upon our project submission, our professor replied us with good news! Our
team had been selected to present to the rest of our course mates.

The day came for us to present, and it turned out to be a hot debate. All other groups had come
prepared with their own summary of the case, so they were well-equipped with relevant
questions and opinions, and it was a day of bouncing ideas off each other with our professor
mediating and facilitating the session. Through such a session, we were able to clarify concepts
and gained a deep understanding of the case through different views and insights.

Already, I’m looking forward to more of trimester 2 and cannot wait for more challenging
assignments in the months to come!