Last week, PCI Stern's renowned performance coach Diane Lennard led 21 NYU Shanghai students in a workshop focused on building physical and vocal presence for presentation skills. This is what Itmum Momin '18 had to say about the experience:
I would like to believe that I am a decent public speaker and presenter, but I entered Professor Lennard's coaching session knowing that there is always room for improvement. I was proven right within the first five minutes. Professor Lennard asked us all to tell a short story about our names. After we had finished, she asked us whether, while speaking, we remembered seeing any of the other students in the session. I made it a point to make eye contact with everyone, but, interestingly, though I saw them -- I didn't notice them.
This led to my first take away from the session: one thought for one person. Look at someone, make contact, finish the thought and then move on to the next person. When I was trying to do this at the final impromptu in the session, I felt like I had made each of my listeners feel like they were the most important person in the room.
The second lesson was more subtle. Though I made eye contact, my head was tilted slightly downward while delivering my talk. This, in addition to general discussions on posture and stance, gave me something I could work on. Despite being a unique experience for every student in the session, the common thread between all our take aways was that we all had something we could practice at every moment of every day. We left the session far more confident in our abilities than we were before, and, with new motivation to improve our presentation skills.