Last quarter I was teaching Public Speaking, and I watched as terrified undergrads overcame their speaking fears in order to stand before their classmates eight times over the course of eleven weeks. I don’t think of myself as being afraid of public speaking, but when the annual call came out for UCSB’s Graduate Research Slam (the UC Equivalent of the popular international 3 Minute Thesis competition), I realized the idea of participating made me nervous. So I decided I owed it to my students to sign-up, and face this fear! Also, as I prepare to go on the job market, I figured it couldn’t hurt to hone my elevator pitch.
So I signed up! And spent much too long drafting a speech, and got up on stage as the only contestant to bear notecards (look, I work in English and it’s our disciplinary norm/god-given-right to READ our conference papers, dammit!), and I made it to the next round! You can see proof here.
We’ll see what next week’s semi-finals bring!
Nissa Ren Cannon 