I Can Now Do Public Speaking

I've always been afraid of speaking in public, I always seem to get off top and loose focus. Today I woke up to a cool sunny, slightly windy morning. I headed to breakfast and ate the usual; pancakes, eggs, sausage, and apple juice. After breakfast I headed off to my Women & Leadership class in CIT 119, where we arrived to a closed door. It was actually good that it was closed because the girls had the chance to talk to each other about our classes and our workshops. We all agreed that we feel more comfortable with each other from trusting each other to spending time with one another. After a couple minutes of talking, Dean Almandrez arrived and had someone open our classroom door and we headed inside. While we were inside we all said two words that we used in our Social Construction of Gender assignment. Minutes later Jennifer Madden entered our classroom dressed as a professional business women. She introduced herself as being a P.H.D. graduate from Brown in 2008, and told us she was going to prepare us for our action plan presentation, next week. I immediately got excited about learning new things from her because I can really use all the help I can get.

She began by asking the class why we think people are afraid to do public speaking. Some of the things that were said were because of judgement, filler words such as "um", articulation announciation  which articulately interrupt people, and etc.. Then we talked about goals relating our audience, she told us how 60% of the presentation is visuals such as movement, eye contact, body language, and clothing. Vocally 30% of the presentation is intonation , volume, and pauses are highly important. 10% of the presentation is the message your trying to get through which is clarity,structure, and common ground.We also learned that during a presentation we should always maintain a good posture, eye contact, and refer to the audience as "We". One of the good advice's she gave was to never hold papers in our hand because they automatically cause the audience to look at it, that perhaps index cards are a better choice. 

I never actually realized how nerve racking question and answer was, it's very hard to have people question you yet you don't know what they might ask. I learned to change volumes so that we can gain the audiences attention.Also, to give a WIIFM , you can't have your statement or point benefiting you only, you must include your audience as well. After the morning class, the class was divided into two and we all did a public speaking about a topic that was given within a minute, it was very hard to think of ideas and fact to support you. It was very nice to see how everyone does when public speaking, everyone did good in each of their ways. I did very good for public speaking today, after learning what Jennifer taught us I was ready. My public speaking argument wasn't perfect but I definitely  felt very positive of how I proved my point about social media.

My Women & Leadership class with Jennifer Madden.

Friends more like sisters! Maria, me, and Sarita (from left to right).

In the afternoon I went to my dorm and simply rested for a while since I'm almost used to the new time. Around 5:45 PM I headed downstairs to meet my chaperon Jenny, along with NEMOW. Most of NEMOW went to eat on Theyer Street, the rest stayed in the dorms to rest. I had a good super burrito sort of Mexican style, the rest of the girls had Korean food. It was nice how some of the girls from my Women & Leadership class joined us as well we had bonding time. After eating we headed downtown to Waterplace Park to go to the Indy-Rock concert it was very nice but it was very packed so we headed back to the dorms to rest. It was a very nice day, and I learned a lot about public speaking. I know I can do more then I think. I'm looking forward to preparing for my Action Plan Presentation.

Waterplace Park.