So… I’m NOT feeling so great about my speech.

Good!

• Emotion; but I was talking about cancer. I want to be a pediatric oncologist and recent events in my life have caused me to have an acute emotional reaction when speaking of/ thinking of the subject.
• Was longer than 3 min.
• Moved around
• Volume/projection; I hate when people have wonderful things to say, but you can’t hear them.
• Nice blend of Hunger Games compared to cancer
• A different topic
• Looked fabulous, CONFIDENCE BOOST!

Bad!

• I was way too nervous when I first got to the front of the room, but felt super comfortable at the end of my speech. I need to not pysch myself out, it’s not as bad as I think it’s going to be.
• Mentally compared myself to previous speakers while speaking. Everyone who went before me was SO GOOD. I felt like I wasn’t living up to them.
• Brought paper with me: I knew more than I gave myself credit for. I would lose track for a second, look on my paper, and then when I was unable to find what I was looking for I’d remember. However, I still looked at the paper!
• EYE CONTACT IS KEY
• In my opening, I was so nervous that I forgot to pause after asking my opening question. However, when I think about it when I practiced it I never thought to pause. I just ran through it.
• My speech was too long. I put most of the important topics at the end of my presentation, however for some reason when I was in front of the class I talked slower than in front of Lauren or a mirror. So I missed some of my key points about the actual artifact… which is what the whole speech was about.
• Lost my voice in the beginning of my speech due to allergies… oops

So before my next speech I’m going to memorize it completely and NOT bring up a sheet of paper. However, I did like that I wrote it all out and knew the exact wording and key points I wanted to say. I’ll try to slow down during my practices. I’ll probably be more confident, knowing that I CAN do well. I will also working on appropriate times to pause.

All in all, not HORRIBLE for a first speech! I tried my hardest, so I think it went pretty well. 🙂