THE MPA TEAMBUILDING CHALLENGE
The School of Accountancy of Singapore Management University organised its first Teambuilding Challenge for Master of Professional Accounting (MPA) students on 9 October 2015. The full day event at FOCUS Adventure, Sentosa, brought the participants closer
With much excitement and fanfare, the event kicked off with an ice-breaker session. After overcoming the initial awkwardness, everyone soon relaxed and warmed up to each other. Participants were then divided into teams for the Geocaching Challenge – a race where teams had to pit their skills in strategic planning, resource and time management against other competing teams in order to win. Armed with navigational devices, participants worked in their teams to scour the island for landmarks and clues. At specific checkpoints, they also had to perform physically exerting challenges posed by their facilitators.
In the afternoon, indoor games such as ‘Blindfold Shape’ and ‘Key Punch’, aimed at mirroring real life corporate situations were played with no less enthusiasm.
Finally, to relive the day’s events and reinforce the message of ‘What builds Success?’, the class was treated to an exclusive video screening of the day’s happenings captured by the FOCUS Adventure crew.
Despite the physical and mental exhaustion that followed, the participants enjoyed themselves immensely and declared it a day that they would not forget. MPA student Jiang Wei felt that by taking the classroom outdoors, it relieved “us of a lot of the pressure and tension brought about by our coursework”.
The indoor games left a particularly deep impression on MPA student Zhang Wendong, Kenrick. His take-away from ‘Blindfold shape’ was that it “emphasized the importance of a common understanding and strategic planning to achieve a team’s goal”. While the second game “demonstrated how people tend to restrict themselves even when the rules were lifted and how important it was to be flexible.”
The majority of the participants, like MPA student Li Xiaolin, relished the chance to make new friends and get to know her MPA course mates better. It was a memorable and enriching experience for all and many were already looking forward to similar events in the future.
