Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Presentation Skills A Must

I have been in pursuit of a Master's degree for four years. I both love and hate it at the same time. I love learning new things, I love being able to grow professionally, I love to listen to my classmates relate professional experiences, and I really love my student discount! I hate group projects, cause let's face it, you always draw at least one "DUD" in your group that is either not a team player, totally does not do any work, (aka...SLACKER), or has an agenda that is the direct opposite of the other 90% of the group; and I am more of an individual effort person. I hate the professors that do not understand you are a working professional, and assign asinine 20 page papers, 10 page take home tests, and 300 pages of reading for class discussion. And I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY hate student presentations; 80% of IT professionals cannot present in front of a group. It is true! It is a fact! They read every bullet point on a slide, take forever to get across their point (the presentation is 20 minutes people! Not 40, not 30, not 50 min!!) and in doing so lose the audience, and speak without any voice inflection whatsoever. Um, "knock, knock, hello people!!" That is not presenting. That is reading while feeding your audience Nyquil and Allergy Medicine (and it is not the non-drowsy kind either)!!

I am coming to the end of the road though. I have 2 more classes to take and I am "D-U-N" done! Then I can yell the battle cry of every educated student, "NO MORE SCHOOL, NO MORE BOOKS, NO MORE TEACHER'S DIRTY LOOKS!!!" And then, I can do what the average middle age man does. Come home from work, sit on the couch, have Sharkey fetch me my slippers and newspaper, present me with a hot dinner, while smiling at me wearing her freshly pressed flower print dress.... Cause, you know all us middle aged men got it like that....and my friends if you think I really do have it like that, then well, you are reading my blog for the first time, and really do not know me at all!!!!