A NEW (AND IMPROVED) SPEECH

During the week of January 30 to February 5, I got the opportunity to compile my introduction and research speeches as well as add my original work speech, making my original work speech a total of 14 minutes long. Through this, I believe that I have grown as a writer and a public speaker, which were two of my main goals to achieve through ISM. Although there is always room for improvement, I believe that as a public speaker, I have improved in multiple aspects. Between the research speech and the original work speech, I believe my biggest accomplishment has been working on my poise and eye contact as well as the use of hand gestures. Previously, I would tend to stand on one leg and and teeter, which is something that I would like to improve by the final presentation night. Another improvement among the speeches was eye contact, because originally I would tend to focus on one student, or stare at the opposite was. During this speech, I tried to keep a constant connection with the audience and I would look around and just be more active. Lastly, I improved on the use of hand gestures. This is an improvement because I would depend on holding my notecards and staying in a stationary position, but this time I got out of my comfort zone and tried to show more energy, making the presentation more emphatic overall. A few things that I would like to work on in the future are transitions, minimizing the use of filler words, and timing my cues to transition from slide to slide. I believe that that by improving these things, it will be the one degree that will make my speech from satisfactory to outstanding. In the upcoming week, I will try to start practicing my speech weekly so that it starts to flow better and I get used to the words and presentation. Also, I would like to start going on mentor visits with my mentor, Dr. Brinkman, and start getting real world insight in the cardiothoracic field.