Public Speaking at IRE

It is expected when IRE students graduate their communication skills are greatly increased. A communication skill practiced often at IRE is public speaking. Public speaking is a trait that many engineering students lack as they enter their professional careers. IRE desperately wants to change this; because it is important that engineers are able to express their ideas through public speaking. Therefore, over the course of two years at IRE, students are presented with many opportunities to improve their public speaking skills. What makes these opportunities so valuable is the feedback students receive from their peers. This allows them to see what areas they need to improve in.

This past Wednesday, the Generation 3 students (juniors) were presented with yet another opportunity to improve their public speaking skills. We each presented our IRE elevator speech to a group of classmates. An IRE elevator speech is how an IRE student would explain our program to somebody they just met on an elevator. The groups consisted of 4-5 students, and the presentations were roughly five minutes in length. After each student presented, every member of the group would take a couple minutes to give the presenter feedback. The group highlighted the student’s strengths and weaknesses in all the different categories such as professionalism, confidence, appropriate dress, etc.

After all the presentations were done and feedback sheets were given out each student took some time to review their sheets. They then wrote a paragraph or two on how the presentation went, what were their strengths and weaknesses and how they would improve for the next time they presented.