By Bilyamin Abdulmumin
The life of students, especially those who are set to continue with the academic line, is full of making one presentation or the other. From undergraduate IT and final year project defense, postgraduate research proposal, progress, internal and external defense to any other local, national, and international conferences.
The departmental seminar, which is phenomenal among students, is conducted for the undergraduate students where they present what they learned from the six months of industrial training (IT) and their final year project defense, once each. But for postgraduate students, it is usually conducted weekly for the scheduled students. On the platform, the postgraduate students communicate to the department what he proposes to embark on as a research project, the progress he has been making, or final (internal) and external defenses.
However, there is one thing that characterizes the minds of presenters – fear. It’s one thing to know what to say but an entirely different thing to face the public to say it. For the majority of people standing before the public to give a talk is a nerve-racking experience. There have been instances where people break down at a stage, it can get worse to that depending on the individual peculiarities.
But the good news is that this unpopular experience could be subverted when some factors are tricked. They include the overwhelming audience esteem, eye contact, appearance, and anxiety.
Overwhelming audience’ esteem
Sometimes, during presentations, fright comes from the feeling that one is standing before an audience with a high caliber- professors, lecturers, or other dignitaries, this makes one easily slip into anxiety. So a hint here is to overlook the audience’s esteem. This can be achieved by hacking the mind. If you are a type that gives tutorials just assume standing before the colleagues, look at the audience the same way you look at cohorts while delivering tutorials. To shelve the audience esteem one can think of them at their low point, e.g. at the time, they are too nervous standing before their professors making a presentation. Once the mind is hacked into one or more of these scenarios the result is that the fear that comes with the audience’s esteem is aced.
Eyes contact
Eye contact is one of the factors that indicate confidence, hence earning the presenter respect from the audience. However, eye contact is not walking in the park even during usual interactions; at the presentation venue where the nerve racks, make eye contact even harder; it also adds milestones around the neck for those who are introverts, because they are naturally weak at eye contact. But to avoid the phenomena, the eye contact can be faked, this is achieved by slightly looking above or below the audience’s eyes, in this way the audience would assume to have eye contact with the presenter while the presenter does not, hence making the presenter to successfully maintain his confidence.
Appearance
It is not uncommon for presenters to seek to impress with their outlook on the day of the presentation. However, going particularly unique with a dress, e.g. new clothes, could end up being the Achilles heel for the presenter. To avoid any negative repercussions, the presenter’s outlook should be good, simple, and particularly the cloth presenter finds comfortable wearing.
Deep breathe
Last but not least of the hints here is taking a deep breath, this is one of the ways stress is lowered. Increased heart rate or fast breathing as the results of one being presenting may reach its peak as the presenter stages out to face his audience. But deep breathing is enough to do the magic. Because according to mind therapists, breathing deeply helps calm down and relax the mind.
Stage fright comes in many ways for different individuals but can be subdued considerably not only by putting these tips into consideration but also by experience- having more public speeche.