Ummmm

The worst part about journal club was the fact that we had to watch it afterwards. Those 10 minutes were worse than the actual presentation. When the video started to play back all I wanted to do was stick my fingers in my ears and yell “I can’t hear you.” Literally everything about it was cringe worthy from my awkward sorority tank to my excessive ums which Noreen convinced me no one but me notices.

I think the best decision I made for journal club was choosing to go first. I’ve always thought I’m the type of person who would rather go last, but turns out being first was completely fine. So my first tip is figure out what makes you most comfortable when you present and but also always be prepared for any unexpected plot twist (whether you created it or not).  My second tip would be to practice, practice, practice. I’m the type of person who selectively gets stage fright when I know deep down that I have no idea what’s going on and I convince myself it’ll be ok to just “wing it.” But confidence is key, if you know your stuff so well that’s its ingrained in your head, there’s less of a reason to worry you’re going to forget or stumble on something.

And when you finally finish saying everything and you think its over and you have no idea whether anyone understood a single word that came out of your mouth because there’s a slight chance you spoke a different language the whole time…

its question time….

I was so terrified that I was going to get that one question where I awkwardly stand there and have to say I have no idea. But turns out you’re usually the only one in the room that has spent a significant amount of time with that paper and usually if you don’t know the answer, if you say so confidently and give a possible answer it’s not a bad thing. 

Overall, journal club was fun because it made me confident in communicating at a college-level. Journal club was the first time since high school (actually been like 2 years wow) that I had presented something to a group of people. Most of the other classes I’ve taken are typical lectures and tests, maybe a project here and there, but 20.109 feels so much more like the real world.