Thursday, May 14, 2015

Already Reaping the Benefits

I had to give a group meeting in my UROP a couple weeks ago and I can definitely say that without this class I would not have been able to present a “professional-worthy” talk. For my journal club in my lab I presented “Ex vivo culture of circulating breast tumor cells for individualized testing of drug susceptibility” by Min Yu et al. It’s a pretty interesting paper for anyone who wants to read it. This paper is even from around the area (from the Haber lab in Massachusetts General Hospital!)

Even if this journal club presentation wasn’t for a grade, I was going to present this to a whole new audience—grad students, postdocs, and my PI who were already proficient in this area. I put in probably more work into this than the journal club I gave in 20.109 so I could leave a good impression on them. Thank goodness for our journal club in 20.109. Because of that assignment I was able to receive comments on my presenting skills and knew what a journal club presentation should look like. I took into consideration my constructive criticism into account from my one on one meeting with Atissa on presenting and slide content when preparing my talk. I made my titles the takeaway point for each slide; I made each slide uncluttered; and I made the figures easier to read for better understanding. When I presented I stood at a 45 degree angle and tried not to play with my hands. At the end, I left the conclusion slide up and just asked if they had any questions instead of making an individual blank slide with just the word questions on it. All in all, my lab said they were pretty impressed by my presentation. This would not have been possible without the helpful comments I received on my journal club presentation in 20.109 and I am eternally grateful. Not even out of 20.109 and I am already reaping the benefits of from this class. 

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