Week 7 is here, and it’s time for me to experience my first independent learning week at RMIT. In all honesty, I could not imagine how a week without classes would benefit me, and I was more than just a bit concerned about my learning experience this week. As it turns out, I have had much to take away from the week 7 events hosted by RMIT, which includes the Global Leadership Forum and Personal Edge sessions.

The Global Leadership Forum has been a valuable opportunity for me to learn and build networks for myself. Throughout the event, I have had the chance to hear from many notable speakers on a great variety of topics. 

A great opening keynote delivered by Ms. Rana Flowers from UNICEF.

I was particularly impressed by and absorbed in the ‘Moving up the corporate ladder’ workshop presented by Mr. Morgan Duarte, Vice President of Schneider Electric Vietnam. Not only was the presentation well-structured, it was also delivered with much charisma. Through Mr. Duarte’s words, I was enlightened to the importance of the willingness to learn and share as a means to gain visibility in a corporate environment. 

Mr. Duarte getting to know the students.

Among other presentations and keynotes, Mr. Christopher Liu’s ‘Connecting Vietnam to the world through online games’ also stood out with many insights regarding the development of VNG Group and how their work is helping Vietnam stay in touch with the latest technological advances the world around. 

Mr. Liu's speech in the auditorium.

The Forum was, additionally, a great window for networking. Not only was I able to connect with friends from neighboring countries like Singapore and far-flung places like Barcelona, but also had the chance to establish contact with a few leaders from Schneider Electric and UNICEF. 

Another very useful workshop on pitching.

All in all, this was an amazing opportunity for me to gain new knowledge and see myself, a communications student, in the context of Vietnam and the world. The skills acquired through the workshops offered, as well as the ideas picked up during the many keynotes within the duration of the forum will certainly be transferable across career options for me. 

With regards to the Personal Edge sessions, while it was a shame that I could not attend all of them, I did pick up more than a few useful things.

The first session I attended was Giang Oi’s sharing session on self-leadership and personal branding. Through her wonderful speech, I not only found a better understanding of how Giang might conduct her life to maintain a balance between work and life, but also peeked into her content creation and marketing process. Additionally, the highly active Q&A session gave me a chance to interact directly with Giang, which was a memorable experience.

Giang Oi speaking.

Among other sessions, I found Mr. Thijs Van Loon’s workshop on presentation particularly interesting. As a former trainer at Google and Apple, Mr. Thijs delivered the workshop with a fine-tuned equilibrium between theory and practical exercise, with much of his charisma sprinkled on top. Through his coaching, I learned how to establish effective mental frameworks to deal with stress before a presentation, as well as how to react when my presentations go over the predefined agenda - something that actually happened in my group presentation in Week 6 of the Contemporary Approaches class. 

In summary, Week 7 was a highly valuable opportunity for me to learn skills that would extend beyond the classroom and into my future career paths. Armed with these transferable skills, I felt more prepared for the rest of this semester than ever.