My Experience In Participating Group Project Of My GP Examinations

This year’s Group Project element of my GP examinations was unlike anything I had ever done before. Coming from a country that’s quite traditional when in comes to education, I’m far more accustomed to the “standard” academic practice of studying up the syllabus for the big exam at the end of the year, and then doing said exam. Year after year this was the fundamental procedure when it came to my scholastic life. The Group Project element of the GP grading systems really threw my preset track out of whack, as, for the first time in my scholarly life so far, my grades for such a big exam depended on others, rather than just myself. Overall though, I’d say the experience was beneficial overall, teaching me valuable skills such as the ability to cooperate and take responsibility.

Initially, I was quite excited to get on with the project. The topic was one that I genuinely thought was very important and therefore I was eager to get going. It was lucky for us that we chose the topic that we did, as there were ample amounts of information on our topic for us to use. I did a decent amount of personal research on my own. I even used to spend a small amount of time each day reading about the topic on my phone in my free time. I wanted to be well read when it came to the topic so that I’d be able to answer any questions my schoolmates or teachers may have had for us if they took interest in our topic.

Even though the information I gathered didn’t really come in handy in the end, I’m still glad that I did the research I did, as it added to my general knowledge about a topic that I used to be unclear about. Additionally, I also did the Malay subtitles for our video. Being the only on in our group fluent in Malay, I ensured that our project had proper subtitles. I avoided using an auto translator as linguistic mistakes can often arise from using such software and I wanted to keep the project as understandable as possible.

I think that our outcome being a video was the right call. As we wanted to reach and transmit our message to as many people as possible, I think that projecting it onto a platform as massive as YouTube, with everyone having access to it as well as it being easy to share, and spread was the right call. Nowadays everything is happening at a fast pace and it only makes sense to keep it brief and concise in a video format to hold the attention of our recipients, we don’t want to bore them, after all. It also gave us the opportunity to display the results of our survey along with voiceovers, which could help to explain how we perceived the results and our reasoning behind the questions.

I also think it makes our project feel more human, personal and relatable. Which are things I always strive for when presenting information. This project was a good opportunity for me to learn more about other cultures. In a country as diverse as Malaysia, which is a melting pot of cultures, little details about individual humanities can often be lost. However, through questioning my friends, who already happen to be from a plethora of backgrounds, I learnt a lot about their own practices and traditions when it comes to privacy and security. Of course, I won’t name cultures here, but it just goes to show how different our practices really are.

I did, in fact, get a group with members that I was beatific about, capable people that I was already familiar with and comfortable around, we had our fair share of disagreements, which is only natural. However, our team consisted of flexible people and I think that we really adapted well and weaved our way through any issues we encountered. I wouldn’t be lying if I said this was probably the most cooperative and focused group that I’ve had the pleasure of working with since basically forever. In the future, I’m definitely going to strive for a similar sort of balance in my team-based endeavor’s in the future. Our group had fantastic chemistry and mutual understanding which helped us to get through the trials and tribulations thrown at us with next to no stumbling.

Honestly, I wasn’t happy with my personal contributions initially. When we were getting started, a lot of our meet-ups were scheduled at inconvenient times and I honestly wasn’t doing much. It made me feel guilty, but I eventually worked up the initiative and sense of responsibility to start contributing to the project. In the end, I do feel like all members of the group have contributed a lot to the project, the work, I think, was distributed evenly and in a smart way. We allocated roles and tasks to those of us that were skilled in that role, such as editing, speaking, writing, conducting interviews, doing research, conducting the survey, compiling data, etc. The project was immensely beneficial to me, even on a personal scale. It thought me a great many valuable lessons, as I mentioned and improved my skills when it came to things like doing research, gathering data, or even translation. To conclude, the project was a good learning experience for me, and helped us to spread awareness about a topic that I really care for about.

Sources:

1. www.secureworks.com/blog/privacy-vs-security
2. http://dailycampus.com/stories/2015/12/3/column-protection-is-more-important-than-privacy
3. www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/privacy-vs-security
4. www.csoonline.com/article/3128212/security/security-vs-privacy-the-endless-fiery-debate-continues.html