My Speech

This week in ISM, I had my Research Speech and my sixth research interview with a professional. First, I finished up my powerpoint, which would be the visual during my speech, and then I started to practice going through all my slides while timing myself. I didn't really want to simply memorize the speech, because I'll never become a better public speaker that way and there's only so many minutes worth of speaking that a person can memorize. Since this speech needed to be between ten and twelve minutes long, I just wrote myself an introduction and conclusion to memorize, and the rest I based off my slides and the audience's interest as I was talking. The day of my speech, I wasn't nervous at all, surprisingly. I had practiced giving my speech several times the night before, so I knew exactly what I wanted to highlight and had a general idea of all the information I included on the slides. As I was talking, I felt much more confident than I had when I gave my first speech, I was talking at a normal speed, and I didn't stutter or use many filler words at all, so I felt really proud of all the progress I have made so far already in ISM. The other major component of the week was my research interview with an instructor at UT Southwestern. The interview went really well, and I learned so much information about prosthetics and the life of a biomedical engineer. This upcoming week, I will finish another Interview Assessment and start working on my display board in preparation for Research Showcase!