Question 1

The prominent personality of our choice for this assignment is Elon Musk, an

entrepreneur and engineer known for his work in revolutionizing two industries at once,

namely the electric vehicle industry and the space transport industry. According to our

research and analysis, our team agreed that Elon Musk possesses some of the graduate

attributes mentioned in the student handbook and also the web-site of UCSI University. The

attributes that contributed to his success and matches to those mentioned in the graduate

attributes, are: creative and critical thinking, ethical and civic responsibility, interpersonal

skills, life-long learning, as well as entrepreneurship and management skills. Our team

performed a detailed analysis of his biography, working mentality as mentioned in his

interviews, as well as his accomplishments and experiences as an entrepreneur, to arrive at

these results that firmly support our point.

First and foremost, we believe that his creative and critical thinking abilities

contributed mainly to his success as an entrepreneur. This means that he is able to analyse,

access, and utilize different thinking skills to determine the value of information and idea.

Elon Musk and his team of engineers are known to be able to create products that others in the

same industry thought was near impossible. He silenced his skeptics and proved his

capabilities when he successfully manufactured and designed a reusable spacecraft for only

one tenth the costs of spacecrafts build by NASA’s team of engineers as Chief Executive

Officer and Chief Technology Officer of SpaceX, his third startup company. Not only that, he

jumpstarted the electric vehicle industry when he successfully manufactured and designed an

electric motor vehicle known as the Tesla Roadster, that contained a battery pack cheap and

light enough to be fitted into a vehicle, which was a task thought to be near impossible to

achieve as the cost for such battery would be too expensive with the technology at that time in

1
2009. Other accomplishments of Elon Musk that resulted from his creative and critical

thinking skills are the successful programming of an online directory software, which he sold

to Compaq for $307 million when he was only 27, and the startup of a financial banking

services company known today as Paypal, which he sold to eBay for $1.5 billion in stock,

acquiring a profit of $165 million. According to his interviews, he constantly mentions that he

always thinks critically and analytically before accepting a view or an idea, preventing him

from arriving at the same “roadblock” as others when accomplishing a task. He encourages

that we should all apply the rules of the First Principles, which is the process of breaking

down a concept to its most fundamental facts and truths, and then reason our way up. The best

example to demonstrate the importance of the rules of the First Principles, as mentioned by

Elon Musk himself, is when he analyzed systematically and strictly each and every

component of the electric car battery pack to see if any improvements can be made in any

aspect before jumping to a conclusion that it is too costly of a product to be sold in the

market.

Elon Musk can also be observed to possess civic responsibility, as well as respectable

work ethics throughout his career. He has proven to be able to function as a responsible

individual with ethical values who is accountable to the local, national and international

community. Through his interviews, we are able to conclude that Elon Musk is a very

determined person whom wishes to preserve the environment and its surroundings, as well as

to actively contribute to societal concerns. Two out of his five companies, namely Tesla

Motors and SolarCity, are built towards the goal of promoting the consumption and

generation of clean renewable energy respectively in conjunction with his efforts to reduce

carbon byproducts released into the atmosphere due to energy generation from carbon based

fuels. His third company SpaceX, on the other hand, was created upon a vision of sending

people to Mars, allowing humankind to be multiplanetary, thus preventing permanent

2
extinction during a possible disastrous event that might strike Earth in the far future. He

furthers proves that he is an ethical entrepreneur and businessman, when he urges young

entrepreneurs to create a product that has high intrinsic value, so that a strong relationship

built upon trust can be established between buyer and seller without the need of potentially

false advertisements.

Another graduate attribute that Elon Musk possesses, is relatively good interpersonal

skills. Throughout his career, we can observe that he is able to work comfortably, efficiently,

and productively in a team, which is normally led by him. He constantly mentions in

interviews and ceremonies that a company is just a group of people working together to create

a product or service, and that we have to work efficiently in a team to overcome obstacles and

tasks that we could not otherwise accomplish alone, even if we possess outstanding individual

skills. Elon Musk is not afraid to collaborate with others, as well as to commit himself on a

group task even if he has to work 80-100 hours a week. An example of his collaboration is

when his second internet financial banking services company X.com, horizontally merged

with Confinity, a company of similar goals, which had further improved their existing

services in the market. He has also worked with Franz von Holzhausen, a well-known car

designer, to create a distinctive design for the Tesla Motor’s Model S, a five-door full-sized

electric motor driven sedan car. The Tesla Model S has won numerous awards in its category,

including 2013 World Green Car of the Year, as well as Time Magazine’s Best 25 Inventions

of the Year 2012. During the launching event of his products, he can also be seen to

constantly recognize and appraise his team’s efforts humbly; he does not consider himself to

be the sole reason for his success.

“One bit of advice: it is important to view knowledge as a sort of semantic tree – make

sure you understand the fundamental principles, ie the trunk and big branches, before you get

3
into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to.”, these were Elon Musk’s

advice on learning, as posted on the Reddit’s AMA (Ask Me Anything) Forum by his official

account. In another interview, he again gave the same advice to his audience, this time he

further added that life-long learning is extremely essential in our daily life, as it will help us to

get closer to understanding our universe. He hopes that we could all find some connection

between us and the universe, and this will help us figure out our meaning in life. Besides, he

encourages reading among teenagers and even adults, to stimulate imagination and creative

thinking in solving real life problems. At the age of 24, Musk had already held a Bachelor of

Science degree in Physics, a Business degree, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics.

However, he decided to abandon his PhD in Applied Physics Programme at Standford in

pursue of his entrepreneurial aspirations. Today, he possesses an extremely proficient

understanding of aerospace engineering, electrical engineering, software engineering, and

mechanical engineering, not to mention sub-disciplines such as structural engineering,

aviation and energy storage, just to name a few. This is the result of his life-long learning

attitude throughout his life. Without a doubt, Elon Musk embraces the vast knowledge

available and attainable by us, and has high regard for and commitment to continuous

learning.

Last but not least, it is definite that Elon Musk had developed great entrepreneurship

and management skills throughout his career as an entrepreneur. All of his companies which

he founded or co-founded were proven to have grown successfully even after encountering

various threats that might have potentially ended the company’s life. Owing to his ability to

engage risk and reality in decision making, he had managed to save his companies several

times, even if he has to risk losing all his previous earnings and capital. According to reports,

Elon Musk had invested a total of USD$72 million with his personal funds to Tesla Motors as

CEO during that period. This bold decision by Musk to bet everything he has left, allowed the

4
company to survive through 2007, a tough period for the company as various difficulties were

faced coincidentally during that time. Moreover, he has been able to persuade and convince

various other entrepreneurs such as Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin, among many

others, to invest in his company as huge funds were needed to enhance and sustain the

research and development needed for commercial mass produced electric vehicles. Not only

that, his management skills allowed him to efficiently manage over 6,000 employees in Tesla

Motors, and over 3,000 in SpaceX. He is also very confident in his evaluation of the viability

of his business, and capable of generating new ideas to have an edge in the competitive

market. To summarize, Elon Musk possesses an ability to create and restructure an

organization to innovate and generate brilliant business ideas.

Question 2

Elon Musk and all the other great entrepreneurs such as Mark Zuckerberg (co-founder

of Facebook) and Blake Ross (software developer of Mozilla Firefox), has proven to all of us

that it is certainly possible to transform into a millionaire by the age of 30. Instead of blindly

following step by step instructions to be a millionaire posted all over the Internet, we should

instead analyze critically and decode the underlying message of their attributes. Emphasizing

on our long-term career development is essential to achieve excellence in work in the future,

as well as enhancing personal well-being.

Quoting from the official Google Website, “We’re less concerned about grades and

transcripts and more interested in how you think. We’re likely to ask you some role-related

questions that provide insight into how you solve problems. Show us how you would tackle

the problem presented—don’t get hung up on nailing the “right” answer.” Regardless of

which field or industry we will be involved in the future, it is crucial to be able to think

creatively and critically. The ability to utilize analytical thinking skills in various contexts

5
allows us to face both ordinary and extraordinary challenges in our job scope. With the ability

to employ problem solving skills to resolve issues, we will definitely have an edge in this

competitive working environment as this will significantly increase our intrinsic value as an

employee or employer. It is necessary to possess such skills in this era of advanced

innovation, as employers are now more likely to employ those who can be more creative in

problem solving. In other words, the human resources department in companies worldwide is

equipping their workforce with people who can “think out of the box”.

Although applying creative and critical thinking skills when solving problems or

generating new ideas are always encouraged, we must bear in mind our responsibility as an

ethical individual living in a modern, civilized society. Like Elon Musk, we must never place

profit as our sole purpose to start or continue a career, he does not make false claims and

promote false advertisements on his products. Perhaps he wants us to understand that

everyone has the responsibility to serve the society or nation, no matter how large or small the

contribution. With this mindset placed within ourselves, we would always be responsible and

ethical in our work, as well as in our daily lives. We would try our best to prevent any

intentional harm from being inflicted on anyone financially, physically, or mentally. After

that, we can take a step further by trying to improve the quality of life of others or preserving

the environment, as what Elon Musk had successfully achieved with his work on SpaceX,

Tesla Motors, SolarCity, and Paypal. We strongly believe that having ethical and civic

responsibility will induce other positive attitudes such as optimism and sense of justice to

develop within ourselves, contributing significantly to our general well-being and long-term

career development.

The importance of interpersonal skills in a working environment is also often

neglected among graduates in recent times. The little emphasis on teamwork in educations of

6
the early and mid stages might have contributed to this factor, at least in the Malaysian

education system. Therefore, as students, it is essential that we take this opportunity during

university to gear ourselves with good interpersonal skills in order to work effectively and

productively as a member of a group upon graduating. Even if Elon Musk possesses

exceptionally good individual technical skills, he would not have achieved these extraordinary

results without the assistance of others. It is his willingness to interact and collaborate with

others that enables him to visualize a problem in different perspectives, hence arriving at a

solution that has very low rate of failure. If we are deprived of the initiative to work in a

group, the opportunity of a better outcome would be missed, as working in a team greatly

enhances our forte and reduces our drawbacks in all aspects. Therefore we can confidently

point out that interpersonal skills can benefit us in the development of our career, by

exchanging knowledge and skills with our colleagues.

The choice to grasp knowledge that is abundant to us lies entirely in our hands. We

should be inspired by Elon Musk’s view on knowledge, and that we should appreciate the

time we have to gain as much knowledge as we can during our lifetime, growing our “tree of

knowledge” with all our effort. Most of the time, we are unable to predict if a particular

knowledge will be useful to us or not, until the moment arrives for it to be applied. However,

there is certainly no harm in attaining as much knowledge as possible available to us. During

our time as a working individual, we must have the commitment to continuously seek learning

opportunities, even after graduating from university. This is to help us develop ourselves to

become a more matured individual, handling situations in a more sensible and rational way,

which is crucial especially when we possess the authority to make critical decisions.It is

certain that Elon Musk and other great successful entrepreneurs prioritise knowledge highly

by pursuing the latest knowledge attainable in order to keep up with the pace of technology,

and we should be inspired to do the same too.

7
 Entrepreneurs are most often those who are ahead of the game, those who have the

ability to create or generate a business idea by anticipating a particular trend. However, it is

much easier said than done, as we can observe from the real life example of Elon Musk

risking his entire fortune on his companies. Fortunately, he had already generated a good

amount of profit from his companies before Tesla Motors and SpaceX, thus providing him

enough funds to keep the company running. Even so, his ability to optimize available

resources in a constraint environment is highly applaudable, and it is something we should all

learn in order to be a great entrepreneur such as him. Nevertheless, as he had also mentioned

in his interviews, he is grateful to the other companies who were willing to invest in his idea,

even the United States Government had offered SpaceX a loan to continue its research and

development when the company was about to collapse after the failure of its third shuttle

launch. Perhaps the underlying message of this event is that a good network base is necessary

to form partnerships in order to expand or grow a company.

Question 3

While conducting our research, we realized that these graduate attributes set by UCSI

University, will not only benefit university graduates in their long-term career development,

but also in their personal growth and development. Our hopes and expectations coincide with

UCSI’s, in the sense that students would continue to seek ways in developing themselves even

after graduating. With that being said, we would like to go in further detail on how students

can improve themselves with respect to these graduate attributes.

We believe that creative and critical thinking abilities can manifest and develop

themselves when one frequently asks questions. Humans are curious in nature, and it is

because of curiosity, that we are able to manipulate science (from the Latin word scientia,

meaning “knowledge”) obtained from the world around us, to assist us progress further as a

8
species. The invention of a tool or method that our ancestors had invented in the past, were

most probably results of continuous trials and errors and by asking key questions each and

every single time a failure happens. By analyzing and assessing each failure, a more précised

factor or component that contributed to the failure of a particular experiment can be obtained,

and then further changes can be made to solve the problem. However, it is advisable to take a

step further by solving problems not only by critical thinking, but also with creativity in

modern times. We can achieve this by developing our aesthetic sense towards a more abstract

form of art, as psychologist suggests. It is believed that increasing our aesthetic sense can

cause our thinking to be more divergent, arriving at multiple possible solutions when solving

a particular problem.

Ethical and civic responsibility on the other hand, is relatively harder to attain than

creativity and critical thinking, due to the fact that it is dependant on the morality of the

individual, how he or she defines what is right or wrong. Our team hypothesized that the best

method to induce ethical and civic responsibility within an individual, is by analyzing and

then weighing the consequences or outcomes of a certain action, to observe if any happiness

or suffering emerges due to that action being taken. In simply terms, we believe that the

utilitarian model can be used to encourage ethical and civic responsibility among individuals.

We theorized that the last recipient of the happiness or suffering, the last victim, is other

human beings. For example, the act of providing false advertisements and information to

customers for the sake of boosting sales and revenue is considered unethical, because it causes

dissatisfaction among customers. Most importantly, it causes them to spend money on a

product or service which value is not in accordance with its price, thus causing suffering or

loss to them in financial terms. Therefore it can only be concluded that this particular act of

providing false advertisements and information is unethical and must never be practiced by

any other businessmen.

9
 Not only are humans curious beings, we are also known to be fundamentally

communal. It is undeniable that interaction between one another led to the development of

civilizations in the early ages. As observed from our ancestors, the exchanging and sharing of

information and knowledge will aid progression. First and foremost, a clear and careful

communication is necessary to develop interpersonal skills. This means that we have to

practice conveying message that is undistorted and misinterpreted by the receiver. By doing

so, we would be cautious about the receiver’s thoughts and emotions and this will help build a

trustworthy relationship. Other than learning to speak clearly, it is also important that we learn

how to listen carefully. Many conflicts can be avoided if one patiently decodes a message by

focusing on words, tone of voice and body language, in order to understand the true message.

We should not hastily jump to conclusions before carefully interpreting the message that is

being received. Our team believes that if one can be an effective communicator as well as

having the passion for group work, then interacting and focusing on tasks with other group

members should not be problem.

We can help ourselves to stay on track on the path of pursuing knowledge by asking

ourselves every day, “What have I learnt today that I did not know yesterday?” , no matter

how insignificant the knowledge may seem to be. It is the understanding of simple things that

will lead us to the understanding of something greater. Exposing ourselves to books or news

articles of credible source and author is a great way to improve our general knowledge. We

can also take advantage of the technology at our disposal such as the internet, to access video

journals and documentaries to update ourselves with the most current information available.

Besides that, our team hypothesized that getting updated with the current world affairs, might

increase one’s sensitivity and concern towards societal issues. Not only that, the life-long

learning attribute can be developed within an individual if a sense of optimism about

humanity is present. When one has a sense of optimism about humanity, he or she will have

10
the concern for establishing and guiding the next generation. In the psychological context, this

will is known as generativity. Therefore the desire to pass down knowledge from one

generation to the next excites an individual to engage in life-long learning.

Lastly, entrepreneurship and management skills can be developed by organizing out-

of-class activities. By involving ourselves in organizational activities, we can familiarize

ourselves with the various skills needed to manage an organization, such as resource and

human management. Besides that, we can train ourselves to handle pressure and stay calm

with a clear mind when taking risks and making decisions. Not only that, we can also widen

our circle of friends easily, or in other words expanding our social network, when organizing

meaningful activities by meeting people with the same goal and vision. Only then by

complimenting with good interpersonal skills, that we are able to pool together great ideas and

opportunities to kick start a brand new entrepreneurial venture.

11
Individual Questions

Choo Wern Kern

1001336322

Question V (a)

Before we began writing the assignment, we had a meeting about the assignment and it

was tough. As a group leader while working on this assignment, I had experienced how a

team can be effective when a good relationship exist. On the first day, they did not disapooint

me as they had followed my instructions. They collected the information about our chosen

prominent personality, Elon Musk. We had our own idea and information to discuss for the

assignment. Even though we have some conflict with each other, we still managed to arrive at

a conclusion that is agreeable by everyone. My listening skills and effective communication

improved as we spoke to each other. The best thing in my group is that none of the members

were busy playing with their Smartphones or tablets during the discussion; this shows that

they were serious throughout the assignment. Therefore I had to also present myself as good

role model, by preparing everything well as to not humiliate myself and to be a trustworthy

person. During my online research, I realized that I can improve my writing skills and

vocabulary while reading through the history of Elon Musk. At the end of first meeting, I had

differentiated the group assignment to each and every member so that we can reduce the work

together and complete most of it before the second meeting.

During the second meeting, we compiled our own part of assignment and allowed Saw

Zhe Min, one of our group members, to check for any major grammatical errors. It was at this

moment, that I found out that my vocabulary was weak and so I took this opportunity to learn

something from my friend Saw Zhe Min. At the end of the second meeting, we managed to

12
complete everything including hard copy and passed it to Siow Mong Ying so that she is able

to keep it until the submission date. In conclusion, working as a team is not only about the end

result but it is also about the process and our spirit as a team to work together harmoniously

while completing a task.

Question V (b)

The prominent personality of our choice for this assignment is Elon Musk, an

entrepreneur and engineer known for his work in revolutionizing two industries at once,

namely the electric vehicle industry and the space transport industry. First of all, Elon Musk

thought us on how to be important in our life is as he was not a person whom wastes his time

contributing nothing to the society. He works twice as hard as others by working at least 80-

100 hours per week to achieve his ambition. He is a detetermined and strong minded person.

Musk states that only when you work hard on your dreams, that there is a possibility it might

be materialized. In this sentence, I knew that even though life is not easy, but we still need to

try as hard as possible in order to achieve our dreams.

Not only that, I respect Elon Musk for he has the leadership skills needed to place

himself ahead of others. Even though he had failed to launch the Falcon 1 rocket as it could

not breakthrough from Earth’s gravitational pull, he managed to motivate his 300 plus

employees to never give up in achieving the company’s mission. Musk thought me that failure

is just a part of our life, and we have to overcome it in order to succeed.

13
 Last but not least, Elon Musk teaches us that we must focus on the big picture. An

example of his is that he had taken on many challenging problems faced by mankind form any

decades. He identified the three main areas where he wanted to make a difference that is the

internet, clean energy and space. He took big risks in each field with no short term gains in

sight. In the next 10 years, he still wants to put man on Mars and is committed to retire on

Mars with 80,000 other colonists. As entrepreneurs, we should follow Elon's path by trying to

fix real world problems that can change the life of thousands rather than just wasting the time

we have.

Lastly, the most important thing that Elon Musk thought us is that knowledge is

important. The amazing fact about Musk is that he is self-taught in programming, physics and

rocket science. As a kid, he used to read encyclopaedias by the dozen. Apparently he turned

into a bookworm since he was bullied at school. He began reading voraciously to gain

knowledge and understanding concepts. Unexpectedly, these knowledge helped him start up a

few successful businesses. Even though he is a bookworm, he still managed to turn into

amazing person in the present.

Throughout Elon Musk’s history, I have learnt that not everyone who is successful

today achieved excellence without placing much effort. More often than not, those who

history best remembers were faced with numerous obstacles that forced them to work harder

and show more determination than others. If I were to fail in my career in the future, I will

remind myself that I always have an opportunity to work harder to achieve my goal.

14
NAME :TEE CHIA YANG

1001439239

Individual Personal Reflection Essay

Question (V) (a):

I am pleased and happy to join this group and fortunately there was not any unpleasant

things that happened.We are called by the group leader, ChooWern Kern, to the first meeting

to discuss about the assignment. All of us group members bonded from the start. I think part

of the reason that we are able to bond so fast was due to our differences. I was very interested

in listening to anyone from the group as they told me their experiences and things about their

lives, because it was very new to me. I think their experience with me was probably similar.

I think because we were all so different, it kept us interested, and we found our experience

new and exciting. Personally, I was really nervous going into the assignment. I didn’t know

what to expect from my group, but after meeting for the first time, all my doubts were

silenced. I think the main reason our group had so much cohesiveness is the fact that we were

all focused on the same goal. We worked together well knowing that if we bonded, success

would come. I was blessed for having a group that had a lot of cohesiveness.

Question (V)(b):

The first thing that I have learned from the chosen prominent personality are critical thinking.

Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally. It includes the ability to engage

in reflective and independent thinking. This means that Elon Musk is able to raise vital

questions and problems, formulating them clearly and precisely, gathering and assessing

relevant information, using abstract ideas to interpret it effectively,comes to well-reasoned

conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards and able

communicate effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex problems.

15
The second thing that I have learned from the chosen prominent personality isgood

interpersonal skills. Interpersonal skills is the skills used by a person to properly interact with

others. In the business domain, the term generally refers to an employee's ability to get along

with others while getting the job done. Interpersonal skills include everything from

communication and listening skills to attitude and deportment. Good interpersonal skills are a

prerequisite for many positions in an organization. This mean that Elon Musk have a good

command of assertion skill, active listening, questioning skill and conflict resolution skills.

Assertion skill is the skill that allows you to remain respectful, defend your rights, and satisfy

your needs, all without abusing, manipulating, controlling, or dominating. Active listening is

focused on the person speaking, absorbing what is said and responding appropriately.

Questioning skills is the skill that determines how you ask the questions and how it will

establish the type of answer you get, the quality of that answer, and the quantity of that

answer.Conflict resolution skillsare skills that will allow managing and resolving conflicts

effectively.

The last thing that I have learned from the chosen prominent personality are management

skills. Management skills is the ability to manage time and people (both oneself and others)

successfully. This means that Elon Musk have the four fundamental traits that are persuasion,

leadership, goal orientation and personal accountability.Persuasion is the ability to convince

others to change the way they think, believe or behave. Leadership is the trait in good leaders

whom were defined to have a compelling vision for the future, i.e., surveyors who highly

ranked prompts such as: 'In the past, people have taken risks to support my vision, mission or

goals,' or 'I have been criticized for being too competitive. Goal orientation is defined this as

"energetically focusing efforts on meeting a goal, mission, or objective. Personal

accountability is people who are personally accountable look at obstacles as a part of the

process and, rather than give up, they are energized by them.

16
LEE CHUN MUN

1001335926

Question V (a)

Personal reflection is vital in learning, teaching, personal identity and one’s research. I

have learnt and explored my experience on this group assignment which includes a number of

elements such as analyzing articles about Elon Musk. Before the first meeting of group

assignment, our group leader ChooWern Kern had informed us to do some research about the

prominent personality of Elon Musk. I searched and collected the secondary data from

internet for the information related to Elon Musk. At the same time, I accessed learning tools

like online resourceswhich helped me improve my writing skills as well as my ability to

understand materials effectively. During the first meeting, every one of us shared our own

opinion or information and discuss, analyze and compile the data in order to arrive at a final

decision about his attributes. Even though conflict is present among us over different issues,

but we shared the joy of good remarks for our work together. Sharing and discussing different

ideas and amount of knowledge amongst the group also gave me a brief insight on how to

deal with problems and come up with an applicable solution. I also experienced how to

confront difficulties in a team work and how to resolve any sort of argument or problem and

come up with something which is agreeable by everyone. At the end of the first meeting, our

leader had differentiated the part of group assignment to every member so that we can reduce

the workload together and complete it before the second meeting. While working on the

assignment, I kept discussing with Lee Leong Jie who did the same part with me and

elaborated the main point together in our part. It was during this time that I exercised a great

opportunity of developing and enhancing my writing skills effectively and efficiently from the

help ofother people’s ideas which was an advantage to me. During the second meeting, every

17
one of us brought our soft copy and combined all of it together. After that, we passed to Saw

Zhe Min who modified and checked the grammar mistakes in the assignment. At this

moment, I realized that teamwork is really important as we can finish off the task easily

before the deadline of assignment, as well as allowing me to communicate widely and broadly

with my group members discussing and organizing the amount of task we had to conduct as a

team. At the end of the second meeting, we finished everything required in the assignment

including hard copy and passed it to SiowMong Ying so that she kept it until the submission

date. Here, I recalled the process of group assignment, I found that a good leadership and

management skill is really useful in a team work and it is a key to maintain a team. In

conclusion, this assignment has given me a new insight about group work with an opportunity

of learning group skills that promoted my self-independence

Question V (b)

Elon Musk is the prominent personality of our choice for this assignment. He is an

entrepreneur and engineer that involve in the electric vehicle industry and the space transport

industry. He has a lot of good attributes that contributed to his success and these attributes

were learned by me after finishing the group assignment part. One of the attribute that I

learned is creative and critical thinking abilities. Creative and critical thinking abilitiesare

useful for problem solving when a creative generation of ideas is combined with critical

evaluation of ideas, such as when Elon Musk and his team of engineers are known to be able

to create products that others in the same industry thought was near impossible such as

manufactured and designed a reusable spacecraft for only one tenth the costs of spacecrafts

build by NASA’s team of engineers. Thus, we have to be creative and think critically so that

we can solve the problem that we face easily in our life. Besides, I also learned ethical and

18
civic responsibility from Elon Musk. Ethical and civic responsibilitycan develop us to

identify, discuss, and reflect upon the ethical dimensions of political, social, and personal life

and to understand the ways in which they can exercise responsible and productive citizenship.

For example, Elon Musk promotes the consumption and generation of clean renewable energy

to reduce the rate of pollution in the future and also this proves that he is an ethical

entrepreneur and businessman. Therefore, we should have ethical and civic responsibility so

that we can differentiate the right and wrong in our life. Moreover, interpersonal skills is also

an attribute that I have learned from Elon Musk. People with good interpersonal skills are

usually perceived as optimistic, calm, confident and charismatic. He constantly recognize and

appraise his team’s efforts humbly and he does not consider himself to be the sole reason for

his success during the launching event of his products. Hence, we should develop our

interpersonal skills since childhood so that improve many aspects of our life professionally

and socially. Furthermore, I also learned the attribute of life-long learning from Elon Musk.

Learning is flexible, diverse and pursued throughout life. Today, Elon Musk possesses an

extremely proficient understanding of aerospace engineering, electrical engineering, software

engineering, and mechanical engineering, not to mention sub-disciplines such as structural

engineering, aviation and energy storage. Therefore, we should learn beyond traditional

schooling and throughout adult life. Lastly, entrepreneurship and management skills also an

attribute that is shown by Elon Musk. A successful entrepreneur must be able to make wise

decisions about how he uses his time, continue evaluating and prioritizing tasks according to

relevance and importance. Elon Musk is the one of successful entrepreneur and he had

invested a total of USD$72 million with his personal funds to Tesla Motors as CEO during

that period. Thus, a good entrepreneur should be able to effectively manage people, a budget,

operations and in some instances, investors.

19
Choo Sin Chet

1001336345

Question V (a)

This is my first group assignment in my first year degree. I felt a little challenging

when I noticed that our group leader, Choo Wen Kern chose Elon Musk as the prominent

personality for this assignment. Elon Musk was a stranger to me and my group members.

Choo was so confident thatElon Musk will make the content of the assignment stronger.

Hence, we trusted our leader and started to do research on Elon Musk during the meeting on

Thursday. In the research, the information that surprised me is that he contributed a lot to the

world. From this research, I learnt to get the resources from the Internet effectively. I would

search the information from some familiar and useful website before getting to website with

low popularity. Forum helped me to collect my group members’ reviews about Elon Musk

too. During the meeting, all the group members had to share our own information for further

discussion. Then, we analyzed and compiledall the information before we made the final

decision to include the main information of prominent personality shown by Elon Musk into

the assignment. During the discussion, a lot of unavoidable argument occurred among us.

However, this leads us to know more about Elon Musk while our assignment would be

improved by hook or by crook. In the meeting, I learnt that we should tolerate among each

other by accepting other people’s opinion so that we could work out an assignment

successfully. We should not be afraid to reject the opinion that we disagreed about by giving a

reasonable suggestion in order to solve the problem thoroughly. After a few hours of

discussion, our leader arranged and distributed the tasks to every members to ensure that we

would be able to complete the assignment by the deadline. In fact, I was not really good in

writing. This assignment offered me a good opportunity to improve my grammar and writing

20
skills. While working on my assignment, my father helped me a lot because he know a lot

about Elon Musk. Besides, my girlfriend helped me to check my grammatical errors as well. I

worked hard in elaborating the point to ensure that it could be understood easily. Next

Thursday, we will have a short meeting in order to combine the all the information that we

have. All the group members will bring the soft copy of our hard work and passthem to Saw

Zhe Min, whom task is to combine the worksand rewrite it smoothly.

In a nutshell, every members of our group paid a lot effort to the assignment so that it

could be done efficiently and punctually. Besides, our leader played an essential role in

ensuring the process of the assignment went smoothly. This had reduced the conflict among

the group members. For me, the major attribute that I had learnt from this assignment is the

confidence in writing an essay.

Question V (b)

Elon Musk is well known for being the co-founder of PayPal, a money-transfer

service for Web consumers. He is also well known for founding Space Exploration

Technologies or SpaceX, the first private company to launch a rocket into space, and for

founding Tesla Motors, which builds electric cars. Elon Musk is a model that shows a lot of

good attributes to us. He also gave me some inspirations in my life. In this assignment, I

learnt a lot from Elon Musk. When he was 24 years old, he earned $22 million by selling this

company (Zip2). I am 20 years old now. However, I am still getting RM 500 as my pocket

money from my parents every month. This shows that I am so little compared with Elon

Musk. I will model after him to be a successful person. Besides that, Elon Musk is a

21
successful entrepreneur, displaying great entrepreneurship and leadership. He is able to make

wise decisions and is good in managing his business. He is also able to manage people,

budget, operations and in some instances, investors effectively. Furthermore, he is able to

evaluate and prioritize tasks according to relevance and priority too.

Moreover, Elon Musk showed that he possess creativity and critical thinking. He has a

very high critical thinking ability to make the world’s technology more advanced and

efficient. He is able to create products that others in the same industry thought nearly

impossible such as manufacturing and designing a reusable spacecraft for only one tenth the

costs of spacecraft built by NASA’s team of engineers. Hence, creativity is really important in

our life to change something better and better.

Besides, I had also learned ethical and civic responsibility from Elon Musk. Ethical

and civic responsibility can help us to identify, discuss, and reflect upon the ethical

dimensions of political, social, and personal life and to understand the ways in which they can

exercise responsible and productive citizenship. For example, Elon Musk promotes the

consumption and generation of solar energy to reduce the rate of pollution in the future

without posing an expensive fee in order to reduce the pollution in his country. He also

produced Hybrid/ Plug in Hybrid car to reduce the consumption of petrol.

Furthermore, Elon Musk showed strong interpersonal skills. People with good

interpersonal skills are usually perceived as optimistic, calm, confident and charismatic. He

recognize and appraise his team’s efforts humbly regularly and he does not consider himself

to be the sole reason for his success during the launching event of his products. This made his

team to be willing to work for him and able to maintain the relationship between the investor

or business partners.

22
 In conclusion, Elon Musk gave a lot of quotes to us. For example, "Failure is an option

here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough." This quotes tells that we shall

not give up although many times of failures happens. He changes the world and also every

single person. He is the good model to the world.

23
Benjamin Lee Jia Liang

1001336010

Question V (a)

When our group first received the assignment question, we have a small discussion

among us to discuss which prominent personality we should choose for this assignment since

we are asked to choose a prominent personality to write about his graduate attribute from his

experienced and successful life. During the discussion, our leader hoped that we could choose

someone apart from the examples that given by lecturer. When everyone is doing some

research on the internet, suddenly one of our member, ChooWern Kern came out with an idea

which is to write about Elon Musk’s graduate personality. However there only two of our

members who knew about Elon Musk and for the rest of us were curious about who the man

is and what have he did. Our group leader, ChooWern Kern decided to choose Elon Musk

because he think we could learn something new when we write someone who we are not

familiar with rather than those we know. At the end of the class, our leader told us to do some

reading about Elon Musk’s background before our first meeting. Before this first meeting, I

did some research about Elon Musk by obtaining some secondary data from the internet. By

doing research on him, it improved my understanding regarding his personality and

contributions.

After a few days, we are called by our group leader, ChooWern Kern to have our very

first meeting at library’s discussion room 6. Before we start our first meeting, our leader

called one of our group member, SiowMong Ying to record our meeting detail for minute

purpose. Our group leader started our first meeting by calling everyone to give him the

information or research that we found before the meeting. However, not everyone of our

member knows him as much as Saw Zhe Min. So he asked our group member, Saw Zhe Min

24
to give a briefing about what make Elon Musk to be successful. After the briefing, we started

to analyze our assignment question and came out with few graduate attribute. At the end of

the meeting, everyone was given a task to do before coming for the second meeting. I was

called by leader to create a facebook group chat so we could communicate each other well.

Besides, I was also called to help others whenever they meet any problem on their task.

Our second meeting is on the 5th of February at discussion room 3, we were asked to

submit our task that was given. All the writings were passed to our member, Saw Zhe Min to

check for grammar mistakes as his English is relatively better compared to us. We were then

called to do our individual assignment during the second meeting. After a few hours, our

group managed to finish our assignment. Our group leader suggested to have a tea together to

have a better relationship between each and every one of our group.

The whole process of doing this assignment help me learn more on communication

skill. It made me understand how important communication and cooperation is between

members in a group. Besides, I met new friends which is SiowMong Ying and Tee Chia

Yang. I had also learned how important leadership is by looking at our group leader,

ChooWern Kern. Lastly, the thing I learn the most is doing research on someone we do not

know at first can help us improve our understanding towards him or her.

Question V (b)

The prominent personality that we chose is Elon Musk. I admire him because he is an

entrepreneur and engineer. He contributed hugely to society by providing space shuttle to the

government and improvising on an electrical motor for commercial use. I did learn a few

attributes from him. First, the thing I learned from him is that our success depends on how

25
much effort we give. He spent almost 80-100 hours in a week working in his company that is

an average of 12 hours in a day. Besides, I also learned that we should not give up whenever

we meet any problem or failure. At the year of 2007 and 2008, the investor of his companies,

SpaceX and Tesla Motors, withdrew their investment as little results were shown and the

same time the companies required a lot of funds to continue their research and development.

To save his company, Elon Musk invested all of his personal funds into his companies

although the companies are on the verge of bankruptcy. Lastly, I had learnt that knowledge is

very important to us. Elon Musk obtained 3 degrees’ certificate only at the age of 24, not to

mention he also teaches himself programming, physics and rocket science.

26
Chin Chun Ho

1001336276

Question V a)

This is the first time that I had worked with this many members. In my previous

assignment, I usually work as smaller group which consists of 4 to 5 members. There are a lot

of different opinions among our group members. Disagreements and arguments are inevitable,

therefore I had learnt to compromise with my group members. After the discussion, the points

and details were divided into 10 parts, each of us took 1 part, therefore effectively reducing

our individual workload. The leader had managed the team effectively, especially during the

meeting when exchanging of ideas and opinions occurs.

Question V b)

Elon Musk is a young American entrepreneur. I came to admire him after conducting my

research. Determination and hard work are the major points I have learned from Elon

Musk.Elon Musk is not afraid to collaborate with others, as well as to commit himself on a

group task even if he has to work 80-100 hours per week. It will be useful for my future

career if I had developed interpersonal skills.These attributes are very important in our life.

For example, we will get a lot of help in our study life and future career with these attributes.

27
Beh Ong Meng

1001336239

Question V a)

This group assignment gave me a new view to work together on a same goal.

Previously, I rarely worked with this much of group members; group for assignment usually

consists of 4 to 6 members while this one has 10 members which is different. Everyone has

their own opinions, ideas and thinking. I realized that the more people we have, the more

ideas we could generate. Although it is true that more ideas can be generated, it does not

necessarily improve the efficiency and performance. Disagreements and arguments are

inevitable; there were conflict after another. Things were not working very well in the

beginning, but everything turned out better than I expected afterwards. What I learned was

that to complete our assignment question, compromising between group members is

important, especially when my assignment group consists of many group members. In which,

we compromised and chose the most accepted idea out of many others whenever there was

conflict. Compromising in this case not only allowed us to pick the best idea also let us

managed to take care of every detail associated with our work.

Question V b)

The reason Elon Musk was our chosen as our prominent personality was not only due

to his notable contribution but also how he managed to do it. For several times, Elon Musk

nearly failed his company or plan. With much sacrifices and desperation still, he managed to

go through and accomplished many tasks that were thought to be impossible by others.

Determination and hard work are the major points I have learned from Elon Musk.

28
Determination and hard work are not only important in Elon Musk’s life, but are also

important in our life as well. In many cases, we have a clear goal yet we are unable to achieve

it, even though the obstacles in our way are not even close to Elon Musk’s. Elon Musk helped

me learn that, determination and hard work are the key points in achieving something in our

lives. The size of the goal does not matter, all it matters is we have to be determined once we

clearly realize our goal and work hard to make progress despite the difficulties. Being

determined and working hard consistently for a big goal will be soul-ripping, but after

learning about Elon Musk, I can safely tell myself that the sacrifice I would have to make,

would be worthwhile.

29
NAME: SIOW MONG YING

1001439334

Individual Personal Reflection Essay

Question (V) (a)

When I first receive the question for our group’s assignment, I felt very unfamiliar with it

since I only have little background knowledge about this field of research. We are supposed to

choose a prominent personality as requested in the assignment. After discussing with the

group members, we decided to choose Elon Musk as our chosen prominent personality. Since

then, I kept asking myself on how to deal with it since I am not familiar with this person. The

only answer it seems, is by reading the articles regarding Elon Musk and discussing with my

group members. I knew that reading can help obtain an overall understanding of the topic, and

discussion can exchange our thoughts thus expanding our knowledge. Therefore, I did some

research on Elon Musk by obtaining reliable and credible secondary sources information from

the internet before attending the group meeting.

We were called by the group leader, Choo Wern Kern, to the first meeting to discuss about

the assignment. Since the group members had already been informed by the leader to do some

research before the meeting, all the members were well prepared, and they came along with

their collected information. During the meeting, the group members exchanged their findings

and investigated on each member’s findings. Everyone were actively sharing their opinions

and participating in the discussion. My previous understanding of the topic has been

overturned after the discussion.

I am very lucky to be able to cooperate with the SDA group members on our group project,

they are great companions who always refresh my mind and enlightened my creativity during

30
our group work. This was my first group project in my university life as I was usually given

individual assignments during my pre-u studies. This was a new experience for me and I had

learned some valuable lessons on how to confront difficulties and challenges in a group as

well as how to come up with something which is agreeable by everyone in the group.

One of my group members, Saw Zhe Min, is great at working with groups and he was

willing to do anything to help the group. He helped me a lot throughout this assignment

especially in the individual part. He checked and corrected our grammatical errors in the

individual essay. All the members worked effectively together and this made work much

easier. John Heywood once said, “Many hands make light work”. Collaborative work could

also multiply the effectiveness of the project.

At last, I am very glad to say that our group never had to deal with any major conflict. This

project had given me a new insight about group work with an opportunity of learning group

skills. These skills have promoted my self-independence.

31
Question (V) (b)

Elon Musk is an American entrepreneur who cofounded the electronic-payment firm

PayPal and the maker of launch vehicles and spacecraft, known as SpaceX. He was also one

of the first significant investors, as well as chairman and chief executive officer of the electric

car manufacturer Tesla Motors. Based on our research, there are many positive attributes that

Elon Musk possesses in order to become a successful young entrepreneur. These attributes

can be learned by us as a life guide.

I had learned that Elon Musk clearly possesses entrepreneurship and management skills.

His success in his career had proved that he has great management skills in managing his

companies. He had once faced the crisis that might have ended his company’s life but he had

managed to save his companies several times due to his ability to engage risk and reality in

decision making. He is also able to manage efficiently over 6,000 employees in Tesla Motors

and over 3,000 in SpaceX. This attribute of his should be learned by everyone so that we are

able to innovate and generate brilliant business ideas as well as to succeed in the future

Besides that, I had learned the attribute of creative and critical thinking abilities were

demonstrated by Elon Musk. These abilities contributed mainly to his success as an

entrepreneur. Elon Musk is said to have creative and critical abilities because he is able to

analyze, evaluate, interpret and utilize different thinking skills to determine the value of ideas

and information. As an example, one of the accomplishments of Elon Musk that resulted from

his creative and critical thinking skills are the successful programming of an online directory

software and the startup of financial banking services company known as Paypal toady. These

creative and critical thinking skills must be developed so that people are able to think broadly

and deeply using skills, behaviours and dispositions such as reason, logic, resourcefulness,

32
imagination and innovation. It is also useful for me to solve and overcome the obstacles faced

in the future.

Furthermore, I had learned the graduate attribute such as interpersonal skills, as shown by

Elon Musk. Interpersonal skills include everything from communication and listening skills to

attitude and deportment. For instance, Elon Musk is not afraid to collaborate with others, as

well as to commit himself on a group task even if he has to work 80-100 hours per week. I

should develop this skill to properly interact with others. In the business domain, developing

interpersonal skills enables a person maintain a good relationship with his or her employee, in

order to get along with others while getting the job done. It will be useful for my future career

if I had developed interpersonal skills because good interpersonal skills are a prerequisite for

many positions in an organization.

As a conclusion, Elon Musk is a role model for everyone as he demonstrates a lot of good

attributes such as entrepreneurship and management skills, creative and critical thinking

abilities and interpersonal skills. I had learned all these skills and abilities from him while

doing this assignment and I believe these attributes will help me in my studies, life as well as

in my future career.

33
Saw Zhe Min

1001436529

Question V a)

While working on this assignment as a group member, it is often quite frustrating as

some of my ideas were being rejected by the other members. Nevertheless, I have learnt to

compromise between my members as I understood that arguments would not lead us to the

completion of this assignment. During the whole duration of the assignment, I did not feel

pressured as the leader gave a reasonable dateline for us to hand it our individual part. Before

that, we had already discussed the points and details that were to be written into the group part

of the assignment, therefore effectively reducing our individual workload. I think that the

leader managed the team effectively, especially during the meeting when exchanging of ideas

and opinions occur quite quickly.

Question V b)

After conducting my research on Elon Musk, I came to admire him as a successful

entrepreneur and a huge contributor to the progression of the human race. I truly admire his

act of investing in our future, rather than fulfilling one’s usual materialistic dream. Regarding

his attributes, every single one of them mentioned in the group part of the assignment is worth

spending my time improving or developing on them, as I have now understood more of their

benefits compared to before. As I personally tend to lack in entrepreneurship and management

skills, I will try my best to engage myself in activities organized by the university from now

on, in hopes learning various management skills and decision making. I would also make

efforts to improve my interpersonal skills as the messages I convey usually tend to be

misinterpreted.

34
Lee Leong Jie

1001436425

Question V a)

Personal reflection is a deeper form of learning that allows us to keep every field of

any experience. I have learnt how to communicate with people and analyze articles about

Elon Musk. The reason for making such a statement is because I am an introvert. Since

young, I have trouble communicating with others.

Before the day of meeting, Wern kern informed us that we need to do some research

on Elon Musk and prepare for the first meeting. I searched for the required information about

our prominent personality, Elon Musk. During that time, I familiarized myself with the

method of using the internet to search for information, as well as managed to obtain a better

understanding about Elon Musk. During the first meeting, all of us had a lot of our own

opinions and information to share and discuss. Although there were some conflict present, but

we managed to handle it quite well. We shared and discuss about the ideas of other group

members. I had also been given the opportunity to experience how to face the difficulties

while working in a team, as well as how to solve the problem and come up with the ideas that

is agreeable by others. After we all agreed, our leader Wern Kern handed us the task of

completing the individual part of the assignment. This is the fairest way of reducing the

burden on everyone’s shoulders.

During the assignment, I faced several problems as I have very few information on my part,

therefore I had to discuss with Lee Chun Mun, a member who did the same part as me. It was

here that I have learned how to communicate and assist each other when faced with a

problem.

35
 One of my group member, Saw Zhe Min, has helped me a lot too. He checked and

corrected my grammatical mistakes in individual essay. At this moment, I have learned to

request for assistance in times of need. At the end of second meeting, we finished everything

including the hard copy and passed it to SiowMong Ying. We had entrusted her to keep it

until the submission date as she is a careful and mindful person.

Question V b)

Last Tuesday, we were given the opportunity to discuss about the assignment in class.

After the discussion, we decided that the prominent personality of our choice for this

assignment was Elon Musk, he is an entrepreneur and engineer known for his work in

revolutionizing two industries at once, namely the electric vehicle industry and the space

transport industry. Elon Musk works at least 80-100 hours per week to achieve his ambition.

Elon Musk can “predict” the future want and needs of the people, such as successfully

involved himself in the internet boom. However, he did turn into a millionaire over night, but

instead sacrificed most of his time studying how things work and trying to innovate on current

technologies. It is almost certain to say everyone will most likely fail more than once before

achieving success.

Today, Elon Musk owns an extremely proficient understanding of aerospace

engineering, electrical engineering, software engineering, and mechanical engineering. Not

only this, he also own sub-disciplines such as structural engineering, aviation and energy

storage. This made me realize that the knowledge available to us is almost unlimited, and that

I am determined from now on to learn as much as I can.

After learning about Elon Musk’s history and his personality, I have learnt that effort

is needed to achieve our dreams. Even if I was born in the poor family, I would still be able to

chase my dream if I am dedicated enough to sacrifice time and effort or even more.

36
 MINUTES OF THE FIRST MEETING

OF SDA GROUP 2015

Date: 29 January 2015 (Thursday)

Time: 11.30 am to 2.00 pm

Venue: Library--Discussion Room 6

PRESENT

CHOO WERN KERN, SAW ZHE MIN, CHIN CHUN HO,

BENJAMIN LEE JIA LIANG, LEE CHUN MUN, LEE LEONG JIE,

CHOO SIN CHET, BEH ONG MENG, TEE CHIA YANG, SIOW MONG YIN

No. Matters Discussed Action By

1. Confirmation of Minutes

1.1 Minutes of the meeting are confirmed without modification. All members

2. Investigation of Assignment’s Question

2.1 The members had a look on the question and analyzed the important All members
part of the question.

3. Briefing

3.1 A group member gave a brief and detail biography about the chosen Saw Zhe Min
prominent personality.

4. Discussion

4.1 Group members collected and discussed the information from the All members
secondary source.

5. Other matters

5.1 Opening of a discussion group on social media is suggested. All the Benjamin Lee
members agreed. Jia Liang

Meeting adjourned at 2.00 pm. The next meeting is tentatively

scheduled on 5th February 2015 2pm at the discussion room.

Minutes prepared by Siow Mong Ying

MINUTES OF THE SECOND MEETING

37
 OF SDA GROUP 2015

Date: 5th February 2015 (Thursday)

Time: 2.00 pm to 4.00 pm

Venue: Library--Discussion Room 3

PRESENT

CHOO WERN KERN, SAW ZHE MIN, CHIN CHUN HO,

BENJAMIN LEE JIA LIANG, LEE CHUN MUN, LEE LEONG JIE,

CHOO SIN CHET, BEH ONG MENG, TEE CHIA YANG, SIOW MONG YING

No. Matters Discussed Action By

1. Confirmation of Minutes

1.1 Minutes of the meeting are confirmed without modification. All members

2. Combination of Members’ Work

2.1 The group members brought the soft copies of their works to combine All members
together.

3. Finishing the Personal Reflection Essay

3.1 The group members who haven’t finish their individual personal Choo Wern
reflection essay are guided by the group leader to finish their essay. Kern

4. Checking of Assignment

4.1 One of the group member checked and corrected the grammar errors of Saw Zhe Min
the individual and group assignments.

5. Other matters

5.1 Leader suggested tea time spent together with the entire members to Choo Wern
appreciate their hard works. Kern

Meeting adjourned at 4.00 pm.

Minutes prepared by Siow Mong Ying

38