Best Group Ever (:

Finally, everything is over. Feeling relieved, yet with a tinge of sadness as well. All the time spent on this project was torturous but yet enjoyable at the same time. Not forgetting that we had to come back to school last Saturday and Sunday, causing us to effectively have a 7-day work week. But, the stress, the jokes, the times we had, would definitely be etched in my memory forever. I feel really blessed, to have this combination of people in my group and I would like to thank them for being with me through this whole journey. You know who you are. (:

Preparation

With the handing up of our proposal just one week ago, we effectively only had one week to prepare for our presentation. The fact that all of us were tied down with other schoolwork didn't make things any easier either. We came up with many ideas to enhance our presentation and to improve the visuals, but we decided that the skill of eloquence and effective presentation was what Brad was looking for. Furthermore, when Vinod introduced Prezi to us and with the idea of making a video to illustrate the gravity of our problem statement, we felt that these were sufficient to complement our presentation.

After spending a lot of time editing our Prezi, we finally got down to rehearsing our speech. For me, I didn’t have a physical script but probably due to the many times I have recited my part, I was able to memorize it by heart. Knowing that persuasiveness is the way to go, I tried to draft my speech to make our proposal sound as convincing as possible. With my part being on benefits, it was even more important that I sounded persuasive. My part initially overshot the time limit to about over 8minutes. However, Alvin helped me by making a great point that I shouldn't be talking about limitations when we are selling our proposal and this helped me in the editing of my speech. It is times like this when we help each other that I feel that that's what group members are there for. (: With countless rehearsals, we were still not quite prepared for the actual event. We even met up at 7am on the actual day to rehearse one final time. The extent that we went for this project really marvels me.

Delivery

For sure, I felt I could do a better job. Watching the recording, I realized I stumbled a few times where I shouldn’t have. My posture should have been better as well. But more importantly, despite countless reminders to myself, I realized I was (again!) talking too quickly. Hopefully, I sounded clear to the class and that they were able to understand what I was presenting. Taking Vinod's advice of making short pauses here and there, I tried to do it during the presentation but it didn't seem as good as during rehearsals. I also realized that I was constantly looking at the screen when I did not have to refer to it at all. Perhaps, it was due to my nervousness. However, I felt I was able to emphasize on certain important parts in my speech and that I was also able to project my voice quite well, sounding clear though fast. Hopefully, I was able to execute that element of persuasiveness.

Use of slide ware and audiovisuals

Taking the hint of not using the usual PowerPoint, we took up Vinod's idea of using Prezi. But then again, we were slightly skeptical about it as well as we were all new to the program. Thinking Prezi was something special that most people might not have seen it, we met our first setback when we realized that the other group was using Prezi as well. However, we decided to go ahead with it anyway and to make the best out of it. Despite the limited time we had, we also decided to make a video to illustrate the evidences of the lack of career skills in students, because we felt that seeing is definitely believing. For fear that the audio in the classroom would not work, we thought of rehearsing in the actual classroom during the weekend, but we weren't able to do so. So, to prevent any technical issues, we decided to bring our own speakers instead and I'm glad that everything went smoothly in the end.

Before I end off, I would like to express my utmost gratitude and appreciation to my beloved group. Thank you so much for everything. I'm glad that we had a common goal in mind, that led us to working well with each other. No doubt there were some unhappiness here and there, but I'm glad things eventually went well. Once again, I am really glad to have known you guys and hope you enjoyed this whole process as much as I did. ((: