To speak or not to speak

Greetings,

Here I am, chilling and enjoying the start of the holidays. Let's begin with Intro to Public Speaking GEM2027.

To be frank, I took this mod hoping to get an easy A. Personally I feel that my ability in public speaking is generally on the better side, hence thought that an A would be really easy. After all, what kind of business student can't present and speak?

And so came lecture 1 and I received quite startling news: Everyone must have cue cards. No cue cards = minus marks. Having been bred since young of the evils of cue cards, I was taken aback. No one in business uses cue cards. It is looked down upon and viewed as if you do not know your stuff well. Regardless, since it is a requirement, I have to abide by it else lose marks for no reason.

The format of this module is as such: 1 hour weekly lecture and 2 hour weekly tutorial. Pretty much the opposite of most other modules. I quite liked it this way. Lectures come and go really quickly, I honestly can't say I've learnt much from it, save for tips to prepare my next speech.

Tutorials were a very pleasant surprise. I never expected - in my wildest dreams - to think that sitting in front of speech after speech would be any good. But no. Each speech that was made was a product of a person pouring out his or her experiences in as engaging a manner as possible. I visited people's dark secrets, climbed the heights of their endeavors and came face to face with life-changing moments. The kind that make you sit back and think: "Wow, I need to get up and make a change!" You know the feeds that get posted on facebook? Sometimes the videos are really good and make you sit back and reflect on your own life. It's exactly like that, just presented to you in a plain, simple and impactful manner.

That being said, a lot of effort is needed to craft a speech of good quality. If anything, that is my greatest takeaway. You must take ownership of what you speak. Because you owe to your audience to present your topic ethically. I suppose that's where the cue cards come in. You shouldn't skip points or leave out facts.

Of course this means that getting that easy A is not easy as I thought. In fact, the marking rubrics weighs heavily on content and preparation. For those who aren't as endowed in speaking, I strongly believe you can get an A with hard work. Submitting a solid preparation outline wins more than half the battle already. The other half would be you becoming comfortable presenting and speaking in front of an audience. I learnt this the hard way. One of my speeches I recall achieving only a score of 60+ - utterly unheard of in my books. I had spoken well, but safe. My tutor commented that I needed to be more daring, not just do what I am comfortable with. This is a speech and not a business presentation after all.

Well, that was quite a dent to my morale for this module to be honest. Sitting at the end of the module, can I say I can get an A? Honestly I am very very uneasy about it. I am even uncertain if I can get an A-.

Nonetheless, it is my predicted score: A-

BUT this is the caveat: if grades were not an issue, I would highly recommend this module. I do not regret taking this module at all. All the vivid descriptions I have attempted to made greatly cover the cons which I have said.

Have a great week

RRR