Journal Club Presentation


It was a relief to finally submit my journal club presentation after struggling for so long. As an inexperienced, shy public speaker, presentations were always my worst nightmare. And as someone who has never completely understood a full research paper, this was a big challenge. During my first practice recording of the journal club presentation, I stuttered about ten thousand times and sounded completely unknowledgeable and unconfident about facts I’ve read over a thousand times. I was not surprised by my lack of natural confidence, but I was slightly disappointed that I couldn’t even do it without anyone watching. Maybe it was the initial weirdness of speaking to a screen. So although those thoughts made me even more unconfident, I kept trying and practicing to do the best that I can.
Even after much practice, I still found myself sounding like a robot reading off a script. Although that was an improvement from sounding uncomfortable and unprepared, my tiny perfectionist side was still unsatisfied. I found that presenting wad much more difficult than I initially imagined. Even after all the preparation, my mind still randomly went completely blank and I couldn’t remember the facts I had looked over so much. I had no idea that would still happen even without an audience, so it was nerve-wracking to imagine what I would sound like in front of one. 
Despite the challenges I encountered. The practice did eventually pay off and I submitted something that hopefully reflected my effort. In the end, I was proud of completing the assignment, especially actually understanding my paper and finding it super interesting. Although speaking to a screen did not come naturally to me, understanding and comprehending the paper actually did. The feeling of actually having most of the knowledge necessary and the resources available to understand the paper was new and amazing to me. Delving into this scientific writing was actually a surprisingly fun and rewarding experience. This experience might even have inspired me to read more interesting research papers. 
Throughout the whole journal club experience, I learned a lot about public speaking and presenting, and about myself as a communicator. I found many strengths and weaknesses in presenting, and am ultimately glad to have been given this learning experience. I hope that I can do even better next time and improve from what I have learned.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reflections on 20.109

Today was the last lecture of 20.109, and as I signed off the Zoom call, I felt a little flutter of sadness. 20.109 presented a unique dynamic that I'd never had in a class before. I'd never had to spend 5 hours a day in class for a single course, or had to present my own novel ideas and be subjected to the interrogations of my classmates or instructors, or write my own research article draft. I learned a bunch of new skills in 20.109, but the following were the ones that will stick with me the most. 1. Schematics - I learned to LOVE making schematics. So much so, in fact, that I am strongly considering buying a BioRender subscription, which is something I usually avoid at all costs. There's something so satisfying about generating your own schematics for presentations and controlling every aspect of the story the image tells. I love coordinating the colors and paring the experimental details down to what is absolutely necessary to tell the story. 2. Effective prese...
Read more
Jesus H Christ, I am so tired. Objectively, no human has ever been as tired as me. Not one. Not even Nancy from Nightmare on Elm Street when she's staying up for days to not get murdered by Freddy Krueger. Not even that other lady from Nightmare on Elm Street when she's staying up for days to not get murdered by Freddy Krueger. On the positive side, I am not staying up for days to not get murdered by Freddy Krueger. In fact, the lab report keeping me up is quite docile compared to him. Even quite docile compared to many of the assignments in 20.109. It's a summary of a semester's research that accomplished a little less than the whole of Mod1. So, if there's one thing I can be grateful for about 20.109, its that it makes other classes look easy.
Read more

A Message from the Peak of Everest

Hello world. As I stand here about twenty feet from the summit, a sense of accomplishment washes over me. It's an undertaking few have conquered. Still, at the same time I feel a sense of dread. I made it here, but what about the trip on the way down? Supplies are lower than expected, the crew is tired, and the nights have been getting longer and longer. There's a small chance we might not even have enough oxygen for the next two days, I haven't had the chance to do the math. Why are we even up here? What hubris drove us to try to conquer this majesty of nature? What were we looking for? Looking out across the broken and jagged Himalayas, I feel contemplative. It's about 6:34 am, and the darkness is starting to lift. Wind is strong, but no snowfall. We dug ourselves a little crevasse to shield ourselves from the wind, and we're on the east side of the mountain. 2 more minutes till sunrise. It was a difficult trip up. It was lonely and sad and cold and...
Read more