Oral Presentations: A Student's Worst Nightmare

On the ladder of fears students associate with college the oral presentation holds a high rung. Whether assisted by power point or index cards, standing in front of class displaying concentrated content can shake up our nervous systems.

Unfortunately for the spectators, the effects are too noticeable. It's like watching an Amish family walk around Best Buy. It's hard to focus on the content when an introvert is outside his or her own realm of normalcy.

Since oral communication is one of the university studies sciences, avoidance is unavoidable.

Fortunately Southeast Missouri State University has courses to assist us. Most university studies classes require an oral presentation, but most of these also throw us in the deep end before teaching us to swim. There isn't much consideration paid to the art of the oral presentation as a performance. And make no mistake; a presentation is a performance.

Presentations are all about personality. You won't see an acting major stumbling over slides. They have a charisma and character that naturally lead them to their desired discipline. At Southeast everyone can learn a bit about how to achieve these traits by enrolling in TH 101, an acting class for non-acting majors.

If you can get over some of the quirks of the curriculum, TH 101 is a useful course to help crack your shell.

Our communication mediums only add to the worry. Most conversations these days take place safely behind a keyboard and LCD screen. We've transformed the art of conversation to electronic Post-it notes. When we spend all day "talking" through text messages and emails we deprive ourselves from interpersonal relationships.

To combat this Southeast offers SC 155, a course that specializes in interpersonal communication. While SC 155 focuses on one-on-one communication, the theories can be transferred if we address the class as a singularity.

By taking advantage of our education we can learn these fears unfounded.

Passiveness does not lend itself well to public speaking. For the sake of ourselves, our teachers and our classmates we need to learn to overcome our public speaking fears.