Spoken Communication
“Ooga-booga!” said the first distinguished communicator to his peers, thus starting us down the path that inevitably led to me failing my Fluid Mechanics tests. Spoken communication is often the first form honed by extraverts, who have extensive practice in the art. Those of us who are shy must gain practice and experience against our will. See below for examples of my spoken communication. Though many of these topics would be lost on the caveman, I think they demonstrate apt public speaking ability nonetheless.
Engineering Ethics and Internships/Co-ops Presentation
Zoe Elam and I wrote and presented an hour long talk on Ethics in Engineering and Internships/Co-ops to incoming engineering freshmen at LSU as part of the Geaux Engineering bridge camp that helps students with the transition to college. In fact, Zoe and I presented the talk twice, back-to-back. The first video on the left demonstrates a more successful Ethics presentation and the second video demonstrates a more successful Internships presentation (due to the composition of the audience and their different interests).
Maker Club Workshops
The entire ethos of Maker Club is to teach others and have them gain enough competency for they themselves to teach others. This requires thorough, clear explanations and teaching not just a skill but the exigence for that skill as well. Maker Club workshops place a heavy emphasis on safety, the use cases for a skill, light scientific theory and explanation behind the skills, and resources for additional independent study of the skill. See images for examples of what typical workshops look like. These workshops require very clear communication to ensure that students do not feel confused or left behind. Feedback from the soldering workshop in particular is seen below:
“This was an amazing workshop. The skill level needed was minimal. This was also a very informational type of project since I myself am not an electrical engineering major. learning about how resistors, LEDs, currents, etc. work in real-life applications was so cool to see happen.”
“I really enjoyed it. I really appreciated the thoughts around safety and felt comfortable learning the new skill.”
“Bonuses were little outside facts on the topics of soldering and circuits, along with very good attention to detail and precautionary tips from Andrew.”
ME 4611 Presentations
See the playlist to see all spoken presentations from ME 4611 Thermal Systems Lab, including improvised table topic presentations, experiment-specific presentations, and six-minute thermodynamic presentations.
Project Inspire LPPS Presentation
See the full 1 hour presentation given to every Livingston Parish Public School System Principal. My individual contribution begins at 9:30 in the video. We discuss Project Inspire and its different components. This presentation was the moment that taught me how important preparation is, and I vowed to never be this unprepared again.
TwoPlus Podcast
My friend Jacob Williams and I’s podcast, an entirely spoken medium, is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. My experience with this creative outlet has helped refine my ability to keep an audience’s attention and avoid perceived lulls when presenting. The podcast is a general slice of life show with no set topics.