The Rush of Freshman Conference Presentations

The Freshman Research Conference consisted of three groups of representatives for the three different pods. The different pods gave overviews of topics they were learning in class. I believe some of the presentations were extremely and unnecessarily long. The first five minutes of the presentations I was genuinely interested. The second five minutes I was interested but slowly losing interest. After more than ten minutes, the presenters had completely lost me. I especially lost interest when the slides looked like pages of a book with so much writing on them. I couldn't really concentrate on the presentations because I was freaking out because I had to present in front of half the freshman class. If you ask me to perform a ballet routine in front of 1,000 people I will do it without hesitation. If you ask me to play a volleyball match with 200 people watching I'll do it willingly. If you ask me to speak in front of about 50 students I will break out in an anxiety attack and just freak out. I've never been much of a public speaker so whenever I have to speak in front of crowds I overthink it and grow anxious. The feeling after presenting,however, is probably the same feeling I get after riding a rollercoaster. My blood is rushing, my hands are shaking, and I feel better than ever.