Panel Discussion 1: Little to No Anxiety

For this first panel discussion, I did not experience any anxiety. Since the panel discussion was impromptu and informal, it didn’t particularly faze me that I was speaking in front of a room of people. I think it also helped that I was not the only one in front of the room. Having a group of people with me helped me feel more comfortable. Because I didn’t feel much anxiety for this panel discussion, I didn’t feel the need to try any of the suggestions from the reading.

Two of my strengths from this panel discussion were that I spoke so that everyone in the room could hear and that I made eye contact with members of the audience. Both of these strengths are keys to successful public speaking. Two of the areas that I could improve on that I learned from this panel discussion are formulating my ideas better before I speak and speaking more slowly. What I mean by thinking out my ideas more fully means that I faltered halfway through my comments because I hadn’t fully developed my thought yet and I was trying to think of an example that would help support my claim. As for the second area, I feel as though I spoke rather quickly and I think that next time, I could speak more slowly which would also help so I wouldn't stumble over my own thoughts and forget where I was going with my point.

My goals that I hope to achieve by the end of this semester are to improve my public speaking skills and to work towards diminishing some of my remaining fears of public speaking. While I am a fairly confident public speaker, thanks to experience, I still have some fears that I can’t seem to shake, but based on the reading, I now know that I can manage them and they don’t have to be in the front of my mind when I start speaking to a crowd.