[M.D. Holloway]

I teach a couple classes that are required for engineering and science majors (as well as math majors) - Professional Presentations and Technical Writing. I wish I took the course in college. Heck, I wish I took it when I first started working. It would have saved me years of trial and error.

I didn’t design the course. There are certain things I would do differently. For the most part it is a good class. Most all of the students say it is the toughest class they take (that includes P-chem, daffy Q’s and thermal as well as mechanics) because it is really different than anything they are comfortable with.

It would actually be easier for non-science students to do well in this course. It seems that most of the good science and engineering students have zero social skills and public presentation chops. The ones that get past their fears of public speaking and apply just a few of the speaking techniques as well as the presentation organization concepts actually do really well. Imagine an engineer or scientist that could write coherently and speak well in a professional, relaxed manner. Rare as naturally violet eyes!

Fortunately, if someone has serious stage fright it will have very little impact on the final grade. Much more goes into it than just being able to get up in front of a crowd and pitching...