Another necessary skill that all people should have is the ability to speak publicly. While I can admit this is not particularly my strong suit, I do believe that I have grown tremendously from my very first presentation to my most recent. Some of the most memorable oral presentations that I have completed come from courses like Genetics, Senior Capstone in Biology, and Advanced Research in Biology.
My Genetics course was not my first oral presentation, nor do I think it was my best however, this kind of presentation had a different set up than a normal presentation would. Instead of presenting research results or background information, I was presenting a hypothetical project proposal for a genetically modified bacterium to do a certain task that was novel and beneficial to society. The actual thought process behind the project was hard for me because I always find it hard to think of new ideas but eventually, I developed this idea of a bacteria that could turn someone’s poop a different color if they had eaten gluten. This was an important topic to me because my mother had just been diagnosed with Celiac Disease and was struggling to figure out if her gastrointestinal issues were from unknowingly eating gluten or something else. For a proposal I need to set the background for why this was important and then show the molecular mechanisms that take place in order to give the desired effect. While this presentation was not very long, it was an important learning experience for future proposals I may have to give. Below is my PowerPoint proposal which I presented to my class in the Fall of 2018.
Another kind of oral presentation that I have learned to give is very similar to a normal research presentation except for the fact that it is not my research. I would classify this kind of oral presentation as a topic presentation. For this specifically, I was tasked with discussing a recent New York Times article and the research within it. I chose to talk about the discovery of jellyfish that can sting without physically touching you by sending out these tiny stinging grenades. In order to give a full presentation, I provided a brief background on jellyfish in general before diving into the specifics of the research. At the end of this presentation I got the audience involved in the presentation by having them discuss some questions such as, “What pressures do you think allowed the cassiosomes (the tiny stinging grenades) to evolve?” I really enjoyed this style of presentation because it felt more laid back like I was just sharing some really cool information that I found. Below is my PowerPoint that I presented to my class in the Spring of 2020.
“You Didn’t Touch These Jellyfish, but They Can Sting You With Tiny Grenades”
The most common kind of presentation that I have done on and off campus is a poster presentation. These kinds of presentations I use to dread because I did not like the idea of standing for an hour or so waiting for people to come read my work and then ask me questions about it. However, after having the ability to experience other kinds of oral presentations I can say now that this is my preferred method. For my Advanced Research in Biology course, I have presented countless posters of varying sizes but all on the same topic of using yeast as a model organism to study the effects of cancer mutations on DNA damage response proteins. I was lucky enough to be able to attend the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) conference in Orlando, Florida during the Spring of 2019. This was my first ever national conference and I was very nervous to present my poster for nearly 2 hours. However, once I got all set up the motions just seemed to click, and my poster presentation went better than I had originally expected. This experience has strengthened my presentation skills as well as my poster designing skills to a very professional level. Below is my poster that I presented at the ASBMB conference during the Spring of 2019.
Investigating the effects of cancer mutations on DNA damage response proteins in yeast
Oral presentation skills are not only for scientists to be able to share research information, but also for everyone who wants to be able to present important information in a formal and professional manor. As stated in (3.1), Longwood not only makes a point to incorporate written-intensive assignments but also speaking-intensive assignments to give us the ability to learn and practice before entering into the job or higher education force.