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Imagine having to give a presentation in front of your anatomy class in high school, or having to hand out 15 candles to people who impacted your life, along with a speech for each during your quinceaera, but your biggest fear is public speaking. I have always hated having to give public speeches or stand in front of a classroom to present anything. My phobia for public speaking began in middle school when kids were not the nicest. I remember being teased because my accent was too thick and my pronunciation was not the best. This played a big role in my confidence when it came to making any type of speeches in any following class or event after. Because my confidence was so low when I gave any type of presentation, I would quickly become super anxious and my accent did tend to come out thicker than normal.

Thanks to this class I have realized why my public speaking was miserable failing no matter how much I felt like I practiced. I never had speech organization. I was always too focus on suppressing my nervousness that I would forget everything else that I practice. As I read in our book, no speech is perfect and most of the time people will not notice your nervousness.

Today I had an interview for work about a successful interpretation session I had with a hospice patient for our stories on the field news session. I decide that this would be the perfect time to put into affect the things I have learned so far from this class and see if it would help with my fear of presenting. To my surprised I did really well and only had to record the interview once with minimal ummm moments and less anxious. I pictured myself giving a successful story and I made sure to have better speech organization, but the one that helped me the most was thinking to myself everyone gets nervous before a speech. As these tips helped me today with my job, to have a smoother presentation, I hope that it helps me in all my future presentations.