Tomorrow is the annual Steinmetz Symposium at Union, where students who have done some sort of research present their results. Which means that today there are a lot of students fretting about having to give a public presentation tomorrow.
Just to remind them that there are worse things than giving a research talk to a fairly sympathetic audience, here’s a poll about scary things:
So, you see, it could be a lot worse…
Space Aliens. 0% (0 votes)
I see Hawking hasn’t voted yet. Might want to send him the link again.
Monsters from the Id covers many things, including my irrational fear of creeply-crawling things.
I used to be afraid of public speaking until one time I realized that I knew more about what I was presenting than anyone else there. After that I relaxed and began to enjoy it.
I used to be afraid of public speaking, until one day in 10th grade I had to give a presentation on a poem. I had read the poem, understood its themes very well, and had a lot of things to say about it, but I had completely forgotten about the speaking assignment. Well, I got up in front of the class and spoke for ten minutes with no notes, and it was by far the best presentation I had ever given in a class up to that point.
Since then I’ve never been nervous about speaking as long as I’m sufficiently prepared beforehand. I don’t make a habit of speaking without any kind of notes, but having an outline in my head and speaking naturally seems to be much nicer for both the speaker and the audience. I learned that as long as I know what I’m talking about and have a good idea of what I’m going to say, public speaking is not too scary.
I chose the fearless option because what I’m afraid of wasn’t on the list. (seaweed) Though I guess according to comment #2 from Kate, I could’ve attributed that to Monsters of the id.
Wasn’t quite sure what that meant beforehand. Maybe next time I’ll skim the comments first.
But seriously, public speaking has got nothing on seaweed. At least with public speaking you can see what creepy things are out there waiting to get you.
I object to this poll, because I should be able to select both “Snakes” and “Flying”. That movie really did a number on me.