I Faced My Public Speaking Fears, and You Should Too
Story by Lauren Stuckey. Photo by Kaylinn Mayo.
Talking to people is… weird, right? It’s weird when you don’t know them, and it’s especially uncomfortable when they’re younger than you and didn’t grow up with your humor. My father calls me an outgoing introvert. I think this means that while I am quite uncomfortable with putting myself out there, I do so anyway despite my fears. I haven’t always felt ready to speak my mind though. One day during my freshman year, I had an epiphany that changed my perspective—sometimes it’s better to take a chance and speak rather than let your thoughts go unheard.
In 9th grade I took a chance at getting out of my comfort zone, accepting the offer I got from my computer science teacher to present to Southeast Academy’s rising 8th graders on their tour of Tech Prep. I initially took the opportunity because it seemed like an easy way to get out of class, but it turned out to be much harder work than I was expecting. I was tasked with talking to the younger students about the ways that the program Adobe Express works for 10 minutes, and entertaining them with some small talk about how I was enjoying my time at Tech Prep. My presentation felt boring compared to the older students in the Academy of Engineering, as they got to show off remote control cars in the hallway, which had to be way more interesting to young minds than Adobe Express.
Me and my friend were assigned to do the Adobe talk together, but we were jittery and regretting our choice. We hadn’t anticipated the challenge of entertaining middle schoolers, and we had to think quickly to keep their attention. I even put a rainbow star screen saver on my tablet to give it an entertaining flare. What this flare was, I honestly have no clue. I was just trying to appease these kids who were only a year younger than me, but seemed so foreign to me in the way that they go about things. I’m glad this weird ‘red face’ thing I have didn’t start back then, getting laughed at by middle schoolers would have been humiliating.
I found our presentation repetitive and easy to simply pass over the brains of students who had more to do back on their own side of the street. I was already a little embarrassed about trying to talk up the generative features Adobe Express provided. This only got worse when a younger student asked the AI to generate a 2010 Dodge Charger, and I struggled to explain why that wasn’t possible yet. Despite the challenges, I got through it. I eventually decided I was happy with myself for getting out there and practicing presenting a topic to an audience.
I started this year feeling much less in my head than I was last year. I’d almost forgotten all about last year’s presentation altogether. On the first day of school, I was loitering outside the building, waiting for the clock to hit 7:40 so I could give up my phone at a reasonable time, when someone else doing the same came up to me and asked for my name. It turns out that she remembered my presentation the year prior, and I vaguely remembered her voice as someone who was up front and got to test out Adobe’s generative AI.
That alone made me glad I agreed to do the presentation in the first place. It served as a chance to look into one of the academies I’d have to be sorted into in my 10th grade year, the Academy of Engineering or the Academy of Urban Ecology. I got to see if I’d truly enjoy focusing on things such as the wondrous powers of artificial intelligence, as well as get a chance to go out there and talk to strangers and make myself look ‘smart’ and ‘cool,’ or whatever last year’s version of myself was hoping to seem like. Whatever she did worked out in the end, as that event was one of the positive moments that nudged me out of expecting to be the quiet, awkward new kid for my entire freshman year until someone took the chance to talk to me. Comparing myself to the person I was in the beginning of my high school career, I’m glad I took that step, as I don’t think I would be as satisfied with my school life as I am now. As it turns out, getting out of your comfort zone and looking smart and cool is actually really fun.
Lauren Stuckey is a sophomore at Friendship Technology Preparatory Academy.