Formal introductory email
Subject: Introductory email
Dear Professor Blackstone,
My name is Joshua Ng San Hee and this is my introductory letter as per required.
I graduated from Republic Polytechnic with a diploma in aerospace engineering and served in the air force as a technician following that. During my time in the air force, I was up close and personal with the aircrafts and their pilots. This intrigued me enough to want to be a pilot myself. I then pleaded to my commander to assist me to get an interview to be one. I however only get back an email deeming me incompatible. Through self-reflection, I too deemed myself incompatible, however I do have another chance to be a commercial pilot.
I then decided that pursuing an engineering degree to be my next course of action. Firstly, the knowledge in physics, mathematics and mechanics will be invaluable to understand the technicalities of my job better. Secondly, I believe university to be a place of positive self-development and growth.
My greatest communications strength would be my enjoyment of being in the spotlight. Humans have a preference to talk about themselves and I am no different. Teaching and sharing what I know has always been something that I consider fun and I have even considered academia as a potential career.
However, contradictingly my greatest weakness is not being able to articulate my thoughts well. If I have to speak or explain anything wordy, I tend to forget what I want to say, keywords or how words are pronounced(confusing the word per-ma-nent as per-na-ment mid sentence), as a result I tend to stutter.
The ultimate goal of this module is to fix my weakness, if I were to become a future pilot I must be able to articulate my thoughts well and speak clearly in tense situations.
My second goal is an overall improvement in the English language to communicate efficiently with people globally. I also believe that a greater improvement in my first language will help me learn foreign languages more efficiently.
Looking forward to working with you,
Joshua
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog. I really hope you get to pursue being a commercial pilot someday. I think I would like to know more about why you chose robotics and why not aerospace or any other aerospace fields
Hello Meena,
DeleteThank you for reading my blog. From my persistent asking of actual pilots, aptitude for flying outweighs course of study. I chose robotics as software engineering has more room for creativity rather than a purely mechanical major.
Hi Joshua,
ReplyDeleteI am happy to find out more about yourself. I believe that you will be able to achieve your goals in the near future. However, I notice that in your first paragraph 'I however only get back...', you did not include commas before and after 'however'.
Best wishes,
Xin Yi
Hi Xinyi,
DeleteThank you for reading my post. I will keep the grammatical error until Professor Brad's comment. Thank you for the heads up.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteDear Joshua,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the informative letter. We learn quite a bit about you in this post, from your air force experience to an evolving interest in engineering. I appreciate your sharing in an open, honest and self-critical manner.
What I'd like to know more about is how your interest in the sciences translated into your enrolling in the robotics programme.
I'm also delighted to hear that teaching may be in your future. Every society needs people who are passionate communicators, those who are inspired to work with young people. By the time you finish your SIT degree, you may feel that you want to work for a while and then, eventually, you could return to the university (to NIE, for example) to solidify your teaching credentials. Whatever the case, you can be sure that there is a lot more happening on the ground than in the air.
In terms of language issues, there is quite a bit to unpack in this letter:
1. phrasing/verb tense
-- I however only get back an email deeming me incompatible.
>
However, I only got back an email deeming me incompatible.
2. sentence structure
-- Through self-reflection, I too deemed myself incompatible, however I do have another chance to be a commercial pilot. > (comma splice) ?
-- If I have to speak or explain anything wordy, I tend to forget what I want to say, keywords or how words are pronounced(confusing the word per-ma-nent as per-na-ment mid sentence), as a result I tend to stutter. > (comma splice)
-- The ultimate goal of this module is to fix my weakness, if I were to become a future pilot I must be able to articulate my thoughts well and speak clearly in tense situations.
> (comma splice) ?
see https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/punctuation/independent_and_dependent_clauses/runonsentences.html
Let's work on refining this letter so as to start moving toward the goals you have for the module.
Best wishes,
Brad
Dear Professor Blackstone,
DeleteThank you for your time, I will take note on my use of comma-splicing.
Regards,
Joshua