Have you ever stumbled through a self-introduction, wishing the floor would swallow you whole? Fear not, starting from this week, College of Liberal Arts has been hosting a series of writing workshop focusing on career narratives, and today, CLA was joined by Mr. Antony Parnigony to tell us all about the tips of acing self-introduction.
The presentation was divided into three parts. First of all, Mr. Parnigony kicked things off with a challenge by asking everyone to condense the entire story into one, single powerful sentence. He
asked everyone to use one sentence to briefly introduce themselves (in written form) to identify the key ingredients including, a name, values, strengths, professional background, and career goal. He also asked everyone to write it down on the worksheet. So, it turned out that a brief self-introduction should explain: who are you; what are you; where or for whom do you do that, and what is that result, or what do they get?
Moving onto the second part, Mr. Parnigony then emphasized the importance of adapting the self-introduction to different audience. He had everyone look into the highlights again in details. He pointed out the importance of identifying the audience, for example, for colleagues, a brief professional update might be enough. However, a new audience might crave a deeper dive into your story. In addition to that, this workshop also explored the power of personal strengths. Mr. Parnigony also encouraged everyone to highlight some personal strengths into self-introduction.
He shared his finding in the use of adjectives between local Taiwanese students and native speakers. For instance, instead of “hardworking,” which is common for many local Taiwanese students, he suggested us to consider using the impactful “ambitious,” which demonstrates the drive and initiative.
Finally, this workshop ended with a volunteer showcase. Brave participants put their newfound skills to the test by delivering their self-introductions in front of everyone and Mr. Parnigony provided valuable feedback for them in return.
The last session of this work shop will be held on May 6th focusing on writing a cover letter. Stay tuned for more CLA EMI series event and don’t forget to follow them on Instgram @cla_emi_program
