Presentations are awful.

I've done a great number of presentations over the past few years. Last IAP, I even had to give presentations practically every day since I was teaching biology to high school students in Italy. So, I mistakenly thought I had gotten much better at giving presentations.

Also, I even actually prepared my journal club presentation rather early. I thought it was due last Thursday for some reason (sadly, I had two exams that day, so I wish I had actually double checked the deadline). So, I was very prepared for the day of the actual presentation.  I had prepared since last week, and had practiced lots of times to make sure my delivery was on point.

Unfortunately....this was me during journal club presentations:

Ok, so maybe it wasn't a total failure. But it was probably the worst presentation I had given in a long time. It was personally very disappointing and frustrating. I was very nervous that day, and perhaps my nerves got the best of me. Also, I was talking pretty quickly, and in the beginning I became distracted because I accidentally pressed something and the mouse was moving over my presentation.

And, I realized that I had included a LOT of information in my presentation. I had a lot that I was explaining, and after seeing everyone else's presentations, I realized I really should have tried to condense mine even more.

When I practiced I managed to finish on time, but when I was doing the actual presentation, I totally lost track of time in my state of panic. I didn't check often enough, and soon enough when I glanced down, not close to being done yet, the time was almost 10 minutes.

At that point I knew I was going to be deducted for going over time, but I didn't want to zip through the rest of my presentation. There were many things I think that could have went better with my presentation:

1) I should have calmed down. I was well prepared and had nothing to be nervous about! I know I could have done much better and am disappointed in myself for not doing better.

2) I should not have gotten distracted by the mouse/should have quickly took a few seconds to breathe and fix the problem so that I could move on.

3) I should have paced myself better and kept better track of the time.

4) I should have included less content in my slides. Having so much to talk about and memorize was also stressful. Also, I think I forgot to say some of the things I had originally planned to say when I was giving the presentation, which is disappointing.

And then came the Q&A session....in which everyone asked me so many questions. I think I did okay in answering questions (and also I was SO relieved that my horrible presentation was over), though I think I might have not properly answered one of Prof. Samson's questions.

I really wish I had done better in my presentation. I know I am capable of doing better. However, this blunder has served as a valuable learning experience for me. I was not well-prepared mentally, but next time I will be. As I reflect on what happened, I suppose I even feel sort of grateful that this happened. This 'failure' has now incited me to do exceptionally well in my next presentation.