Friday, November 20, 2009

Co-presenter anxiety

This weekend I'm giving a presentation with another person in my interdisciplinary cohort about the project we've been working on. It's going to be a large, mixed audience- some prominent scientists but mostly non-scientists who are enthusiasts about what we studied in our project. We're slated to present between two senior scientists, to an audience of about 100 people. It's a little intimidating.

Getting this presentation ready has taken more of my week than I expected it to, and my co-presenter is making me kinda anxious. I'm pretty sure we'll be great and people will love us, but he keeps bringing up all of the unknowns (What will the room be like? How big will our screen be? What if they mistake us for experts? What if someone asks us a question we can't answer?). I'm just trying to go with the flow. Our presentation is nearly final now, and we're practicing tomorrow evening. He's bringing his girlfriend over tonight and so we'll practice the presentation after dinner. I just want to have fun with this presentation and convince all these laypeople of the greatness of our project.

1 comment:

Transient Theorist said...

I think in general, if you are excited and genuine about your subject and your presentation, it'll probably go fantastically well, all other variables aside.

Good luck!