Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Today's connection to last year
Today in class we had a very interesting conversation and presentation on eating disorders. But the part that I found the most interesting was how many times the girl presenting to us said um. I recall learning from a guest speaker that whenever giving presentations or speeches to avoid saying the word um or like. Even though I know she is not a professional, it still bothered me a lot that she said it so many times. It got to a point where I couldn't hear a thing she was saying and just started counting the ums. I feel that public speaking is very essential in order to present yourself in a professional manner. I'm very glad that I learned this important skill last year in the Women and Leadership course here at Brown. This just goes to show you how beneficial it is to be able to attend courses like that, and I wouldn't have been able to come to Brown without the ILC. Other then that her presentation was very informative and she even told us about her own experience which must have been really hard for her to do. I could never imagine going through the things she did, it just doesn't seem possible. But that just justifies how society pushes people (mainly women) to look a certain and make them feel like they have to be a certain weight to look beautiful. I also got a lot of information on this last year in my women and leadership class. Well that's all for today!
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1 comment:
Gina,
I’m glad you brought this up. Like you, I all too often see presenters who don’t even realize how frequently they interject an “um”, “like” or “you know” into their speeches. I also see speakers that tend to put their hands up around their mouths that sometimes blocks their words from being clearly understood.
You don’t have to be a professional speaker to need to correct this problem. All too often the speaker’s unaware of what they’re doing but even when they’re confronted with it sometimes they don’t see it as important enough to affect a change.
What they need to do, though, is read a blog like yours today where you clearly pointed out that you pretty much stopped listening to what she was saying because you became fixated on how she was saying it. This is a legitimate problem, Gina, and speakers need to be made aware of it. Sometimes replaying a video clip helps drive the point home to them.
As you pointed out, you were made aware of it when you took your Leadership class. I hope you share some of your thoughts on this with some of your colleagues. Like the rest of us, some of your colleagues could use a little guidance on how better to present themselves to make a good impression. We could all use a little positive reinforcement and guidance from time to time.
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