Professional Communication Project: a valuable learning opportunity
Wendy Kwok, Sylvia Mui and Sharon Yuen (Year 3 students of BAEPC)
The theme of the final-year projects this year is “ENcode - Getting the Message Across” and we are now ready to “encode” our projects at an exhibition in Multi-Purpose Room A, B and C from 18 to 20 April.
We are put into 16 groups and gain hands-on experience for a whole year working with local businesses and non-profit organizations such as ORBIS Hong Kong, Teen AIDS and ICS Trust (Asia) Limited.
Through the project we apply what we learn in courses such as Public Relations Writing and Desktop Publishing and Design, demonstrating our knowledge and skills and gaining valuable insights into a ‘real’ working environment.
In our group, for example, we organized a fund-raising event at CityU in March this year called “Bright Weaving for Sight” for ORBIS Hong Kong, a non-profit organization devoted to eliminating preventable blindness in the developing world and arousing public awareness about general eye health.
During this event, nearly 200 participants wove hand bands and sent messages of support to people in Hong Kong with visual impairments. More than $17,000 was raised and as a symbol of our support we presented the Hong Kong Society for the Blind with one handicraft made by putting all hand bands together.
The Professional Communication Project has given us an unforgettable experience, teaching us to overcome challenges. For example, we had problems securing sponsors at first, but after reviewing our approach and revising our sponsorship letter, Vita Soy Milk eventually signed up as our sponsor a month before our event took place.
“The project has given us an unforgettable experience. We worked closely with our university friends who become like actual work partners, and it was a great introduction to the real business world,” said Phyllis Fung Chung-ling, leader of the ORBIS group.