Engineering...busy course

Recently, I joined this even called, "Can You Talk?". The reason is to of course improve my presentation and communication skills. Of course, I would not just simply join an event like this but Siraj (my orientation committee MC) was part of the organizing committee and he is a great MC. So, I decided why not...It was interesting minus the lectures on communications. There I even got to practice being an MC in front of the other contestants of course with a given situation. I did pretty well I guess. The only thing I actually want to improve is to take notice of my audience instead of ignoring them.

Back in secondary school, one of my seniors gave me an advice to ignore the crowd, sort of like look pass through them, then you wont be afraid. Since then, it has become a habit that I dont look into my audiences' eyes and just ignored them. However, I think to be a perfect presenter, you must take notice of your audiences' facial expression in order to change your presentation style according to them, in other words, a dynamic presenter. The advice they gave me was, why must you be afraid? what is the reason to be afraid? then once you know that there is nothing to be afraid of, then you wont be afraid anymore.

After the one day training camp, I felt more confident already. Even after 3 years presenting in MMU, I still get shaky legs when I talk in front of a crowd. Then, there was a competition. First part is to choose whether to be an MC for a formal event or an informal event, or choose to broadcast (like those in supermarket telling you there is a sale) or choose to be a tv host where you have to interview someone. I chose to be an informal MC because I tried formal MC back in the training camp already. So, I wanted something different and formal MC is quite fixed the things you have to do. The most exciting part is, my exam and the competition is just an hour away. So, I did my part and went for my exam and came back to continue the second part of the competition. For the second part of the competition, we have to do a public speaking. I got this super lame title which is, "plants have feelings too"...we were given 5 minutes and I used like 2 minutes to explain the various possibilities that plants might have feelings all the time thinking, "what the hell?! plants dont have feelings". When I stopped the judges was like, "that's it???". I told them that I dont have anything else to say and it is against my belief that plants have feelings. Then they asked me to tell them why. So, I continued with plants got no soul etc.

In the end, I did not win the competition but I got to know from the judges that I got number 3 and I am the best informal MC among the rest. HUAHAHAHA. Proud like hell.

Now I get to my title. Comparing to business or whatever, I feel that Engineering students has the least time to hang around and join clubs and societies without compromising their studies. Why? I will tell you why. Long sem, Engineering students, max 6 subjects. For the six subjects 5 subjects got lab (like what I am having now). Taking an average of 2 lab sessions per subject, that makes each subject 6 hours of lab session. 6 times 5 equals an additional 30 hours per semester for engineering. To add to it, 5 subjects times 2 lab sessions each equals 10 lab sessions. 10 lab sessions equals 10 lab reports. Add with assignments for each subject, midterm for each subject, where got time left to spend on club activities or join events....after whole day in campus, come back to have some personal time, then sleep. To make it worse, the assignments dont promote socializing unless of course if you are asking for answers from your coursemates.