Squaring Up

October 28th, 2022

Battening down the hatches

The fall semester has been off to a very busy start. I entered this new school year with all three of my research projects in tow in their results stages. I spent the beginning weeks focusing on an installation in order to secure its opening reception date. Classes were a bit of an adjustment, and as I reach the midpoint of the semester, I feel I've gotten more of a balance between everyday work and those lingering project tasks. While things don't seem to be calming down anytime soon I've finally caught up with myself.

Beginning of the end

Following my re-centering, I'm better off to finish preparing for my presentation in December. The McNair Scholars Symposium is quickly coming up and I'm finding myself to be a bit panicked. In spite of that panic, I plan to move forward confidently as I continue to refine my presentation.

While practicing my notes, I've found my biggest obstacle will be giving the presentation itself.

Moving forward, looking back

In the past, I've always had issues with presentations and public speaking. I can specifically remember something as small as popcorn reading in class causing a large amount of stress; my voice would either be physically shaking, or I would rush through not remembering most of my points. Since then, I've made progress; made myself a business, held workshops, and given many public presentations. If I'm being honest though, I don't think I've ever conquered that part of myself. I just started talking about things that I knew. The more confident I got in my field, the more my anxiety went away. I can't help but feel like a bit of an imposter. Though I know my research and am confident about the work I've done, something about presenting alongside other professionals in STEM based fields has just been making me feel a bit small.

Running up that hill

In spite of all this, I plan to approach the presentation with confidence. Although I may be an outlier in the whole of the McNair program, that only gives me more opportunity to pave way for myself to represent my field and research in art as a whole. I only hope I can prove it to myself. The best I can do is continue to prepare as rigorously as possible. I can find myself running up the hill and present my work at it's best form.