# Presentations holding you back????



## Mtbyker81 (Aug 7, 2005)

Hate those oral presentations and having to read in class, those two things are killing my college career. I'm 24 and have a ton of credits but not in any particular major. English Compositon 2 is keeping me from earning a radiology technology degree, because presentations and reading aloud are part of the class. What's up with that?


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## mserychic (Oct 2, 2004)

Those dreaded speech and english classes are keeping me from getting my AA. I've tried taking em both and both I walked out of and didn't go back :afr


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## Mork (Apr 11, 2005)

I figure everyone has a tough time with speeches, so I didn't really care how I did in those types of classes. I just focus on the material I have to say, and practice as much as possible, and I do ok. Well sometime bad and sometime good, but whatever. Nobody in class really pays attention anyway.


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## Where the river goes (Aug 4, 2005)

That's been holding me back my entire college career. I could have been done alot earlier.


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## Nyx (Nov 17, 2003)

I have a class next semester that requires a presentation and group work and I reall, really don't want to do it. It's a requirement for my major and I just feel like dropping my major or dropping out of school altogether.


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## unnamed (Jun 8, 2005)

I've finished uni now but in my first year there was a presentation I had to do for a subject. Failed that subject because I decided not to go on the day of the presentation. Few years later I repeated the subject and passed. Was very difficult but it was such a relief when I got it over with. I don't think the other students really pay any attention to what you're saying anyway.


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## funkalicious (Sep 24, 2005)

I know how you feel, i definetly find that my fear of presentations or any form of public speaking is holding me back for my future so much that i'm considering not applying to university altogether, it feels horribel 
Oh well i guess i'll keep trying hard for a good job. It's just so annoying when SA makes your school life THAT much harder and even reading a little passage from a book gets me into a nervous wreak while everyone else is so calm and dont even care.
I'm considering telling some of my teachers about my SA and hopefully they might spare me from reading out loud in class.


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## cakesniffer (Nov 11, 2003)

Every time a presentation comes up I just go to my teacher. I've already talked to one of my teachers this semester who's requiring two presentations about an alternative to doing them and she was nice about it. I really can't deal with presentations and the agony of forcing myself to do them anymore.


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## Zephyr (Nov 8, 2003)

I'm lucky in that I haven't had to do a real presentation since high school. In the science program here it's mostly just lectures, labs, and just a *tiny* bit of group work. I think I would die if I had to do an oral presentation thing. I don't know how I got through high school. I would just feel so much agony, to the point that it felt like the day of the presentation was actually the last day of my life, and I would never get beyond it. I do remember that once the presentation was over, I felt great....like I had come through the other side and lived to tell about it.


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## Norske (Sep 21, 2005)

I can really identify with not wanting to do presentations! 

I really got tired of having teachers tell me to "Speak Up" whenever I gave a presentation. Somehow it already sounds like I'm shouting to me but I'm actually speaking softly during presentations? I don't know how that works.


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## emptybottle (Jan 3, 2005)

Sheri said:


> Every time a presentation comes up I just go to my teacher. I've already talked to one of my teachers this semester who's requiring two presentations about an alternative to doing them and she was nice about it. I really can't deal with presentations and the agony of forcing myself to do them anymore.


Me neither. But I don't think most teachers would allow students to opt out of presentations because they're too shy/nervous. They'd say that doing oral presentations in school will be useful in the long-run when you're out in the real world because it improves your communication skills. Or some crap like that. 
I really really need to start working on a speech for next week that requires the use of several visual aids. It's like a presentation. I'm so scared, I get too anxious to even start researching and outlining, which really ends up just increasing my anxiety more and more each day. My advice for people doing presentations is start preparing early!


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## El Conquistador (Sep 7, 2005)

Just gotta suck it up and move forward.

I hate presentations too. Heck, I almost fainted on the last one I did.


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## F-Bomb (May 17, 2005)

Nyx said:


> I have a class next semester that requires a presentation and group work and I reall, really don't want to do it. It's a requirement for my major and I just feel like dropping my major or dropping out of school altogether.


I did drop out of school because of speeches (mostly). Now I'm back in school and still don't know how I'm going to handle it.


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## shytwilightwolf (Sep 3, 2005)

:afr I hate presentaions too. I wish they never existed. People staring for so long...very scary. :hide


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## Dove (Mar 14, 2005)

emptybottle said:


> They'd say that doing oral presentations in school will be useful in the long-run when you're out in the real world because it improves your communication skills. Or some crap like that.


Ugh, I know! One of my teachers recently said that. I hate how teachers always think the more you do it, the better you'll get at it. So untrue. All my life, teachers have said that, and I haven't improved at all.

In response to the topic title, oh god, yes. I don't have a presentation until next month but I'm already dreading it and it's already killing me inside! I'm already worrying about what to do, whether I should go or not, and if I do, the way people will look at me, how people's assumptions of me will change, etc. We can present from our seats but I KNOW people will stare back at me because someone ALWAYS does, and I hate it.

A speech class is also part of our general ed requirements and I plan to put that off as long as possible. Who knows, by my second year, I might be at another school that has other alternatives. I doubt that'll happen, but I have to have that option in mind because I can't stand the thought of me taking a speech class. It just can't happen.


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## bellicose (Sep 16, 2004)

Speeches are hard.  I'm taking a required Communication course and we do a speech almost every week. What's worse, though, is that every class period the prof will make us arrange our desks around in a circle, so we're all staring at each other and there is no "back" of the classroom.

I realized that no one wanted to be in there. Every person in my class of 25 is anxious whenever they have to go up to the lectern. Even the most socially confident people are visibly nervous & sometimes shaking. I just take some valium an hour beforehand and remind myself that I don't have a choice. My speeches are probably pretty crappy, but no one cares. An advantage is that people feel like they know you a little better after they've heard you speak.  I've made more 'friends' in that class than in any others, and we give each other a bit of moral support-- it's really nice.

Our class has a guaranteed 80+% grade on presentations-- so you as long as you make it through your presentations (no matter how crappy) and turn in your assignments, you're pretty much guaranteed a passing grade. I don't know if that's normal or not...


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## brygb217 (Dec 3, 2003)

I have a presentation due Wednesday. 20 minutes, where you basically teach the class about a poem. T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land", Part 3. I have not read the whole poem, and I am considering withdrawing from said course, because this presentation junk was not on the syllabus. I just needed to get that out and tell someone.


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## Your Lover Scrub Ducky (Jul 26, 2004)

i get really nervous about presentations, but ive had really good experiences with them. i usually make them funny(or try) to sort of lighten the tension i feel.

i had to do a presentation for spainish in college a few semesters back, all we had to do was give info on a latin country. but id get nervous just standing there talking so i wore a sombrero and dressed up like i was from mexico and i brought marracas (sp?) and to start, i played a spainish song and did some ridculous shake your booty dance while shaking the marracas. the class was basically in tears from laughing so hard and i felt much more at ease as i presented.


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## kikachuck (Nov 10, 2003)

Scrub Ducky said:


> i had to do a presentation for spainish in college a few semesters back, all we had to do was give info on a latin country. but id get nervous just standing there talking so i wore a sombrero and dressed up like i was from mexico and i brought marracas (sp?) and to start, i played a spainish song and did some ridculous shake your booty dance while shaking the marracas. the class was basically in tears from laughing so hard and i felt much more at ease as i presented.


That is brilliant duck! :rofl
But for some reason I don't have all that hard of a time picturing you doing such a thing :lol


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## emptybottle (Jan 3, 2005)

On my speech class, there's no lectern to stand behind, so I never know what to do with my hands. It seems like a small thing, but it greatly raises my anxiety level, especially since the professor takes off major points if you're fidgeting up there, not standing confidently, and not gesturing with your hands. I've seen other speech classes that meet at that same classroom and they're all allowed to stand behind a lectern.


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## manda (Oct 10, 2005)

I am considering dropping out of school because it is becoming so difficult for me to speak in any class. I know I have 2 presentations later on this year, and I already have immense anxiety over them. I can already feel the shame and embarrasment overcoming my body, my face turning bright red, and literally wanting to die. I don't know what to do... or how to deal with this. Someone please help


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## Anatomica (May 23, 2005)

yeah presentations are extremely difficult for everyone, let alone someone with sa, but please don't drop out because of it ,it's better to conquer that fear early on. It's very difficult, but you'll feel a lot better going through with it instead of avoiding it. What I do to help me go through presentations is that no matter the outcome I will forgive myself, and feel good about being able to go up there at all...that way I don't have as much pressure on myself on doing well and be able to relax more.


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## numbsmiles (Jan 2, 2005)

I hear you guys, speech classes is the reason why I do not have my bachelors yet. I have lots of credits, completed most of my required classes. If it weren't for classes which involved "participation" I would have somewhere around a 3.8 GPA, instead it's only a 3.05 or so.
But I haven't been in school for almost two years now, recently I decided to give it a try, so I reapplied to a new school where I found out if I did accounting I can avoid speech classes. I know it's lame but I know I can't get up there and do a presentation. Sigh


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