Just Breathe by Sierra

Just Breathe by Sierra - December 2024 Scholarship Essay

A challenging academic experience I faced was in a college credit public speaking class during my sophomore year. The class was a semester long and I did it because I will need the credit once I get to college. I knew I struggled with giving presentations in class but I didn’t realize how much worse it would be in the form of a speech instead of a PowerPoint presentation, this class brought out my fear of public speaking in a way I had not experienced before. Our first speech was a self eulogy and it had to be five minutes long. On the day of this speech, I was super nervous and found myself speaking super fast and stumbling over my words. I realized that I was going to struggle with presenting in this class and that I would have to find a way to get past my fear of public speaking. Luckily, my class had only 11 students and I knew all of them and I knew that I wasn’t the only one in the class with a fear of public speaking.
To help the other students and me the professor taught the class various breathing techniques and pressure points to help us calm our nerves before giving our speeches. On my own time when I knew I had a speech coming up, I would practice it numerous times in the mirror so that I would be self-aware of my voice speed, volume, and overusing my hands. I found that this helped me significantly so that I would meet the time requirements for my speeches and speak clearly so that everyone could understand me. Another thing I did that helped me overcome my struggles with my public speaking class was watching sensory fruit videos. Watching the dancing fruit made me not nervous and I would watch it for a few minutes before I went up to give my speech. I am not sure why the sensory fruit videos calmed my nerves, maybe it was just distracting so I wasn’t focused on having to give my presentation but whatever it did helped. The biggest thing I learned was that to overcome my challenge with public speaking I just needed to breathe.