We have all had that one or two presentations we have made and felt the audience cringe on our behalf as we were falling apart right before their eyes. My very first experience was back in my undergraduate class. I had to make a presentation on behalf of my group; I was confident I would do well until I took the stage. It was a disaster. I could barely understand what was in my slides. I took the most prolonged pauses between points, and I developed a weird stutter. My team could not recognise me up there. I longed for the end of the presentation, and so did the rest of the audience.

Thursday’s lecture pointed out mistakes I made then and some that I carried on. It is worth noting that practice makes perfect. With more presentations I made, my confidence grew; unfortunately, my nerves stayed put. In the lecture, I learned a few aspects of handling my nerves – breath, pause, and regroup. I hope to use these during my upcoming presentation. My nervous tell is avoiding eye contact with the audience; this way, I believe they can not see right through me. I hope to work on this before presentation day. The professor talked about controlling the speed of our speech, and in this way, we avoid our mind going blank by allowing our brain process what we say next. This was definitely a take-home message for me.

We also got to learn about designing proper PowerPoint slides appropriate for presentations. Things as simple as text font, background colour, content or graphics can throw the audience off and sink a presentation. It will be ideal to find a balance in the slide design that will suit the audience. Excellent presentation slides directly affect the delivery of the content, so it was best to know the pros and cons of ‘good’ slides.

And finally, the lecture exercise was a bit of everything. A one-minute abrupt presentation, with no prior knowledge of the topic, no practice, no chance to think. Sounds exciting right? It was, and scary as well. We had to apply the public speaking skills we had just learned. I was called to present first. As I walked to the front of the class, my nerves got the best of me. I could feel the tremor in my hands and my heart racing. I was in the spotlight, and it was the longest minute I have ever experienced. As the rest of the class took turns in the presentations, I thought of how much I could have said, but I did not. Listening back to the presentation recordings, I laughed my heart out. I did not recognise the person speaking. I was so nervous and repeated myself a few times. It was a great exercise that I will probably reflect on every time I have a presentation.