Life: Presentation Hell

I've been thinking about going back to school, and Industrial Design has seemed the answer. My intent would be to work on outdoor gear design. Since I get to take free Continuing Education courses as part of my benefits from the University of Calgary, I'm taking some art and design to see what I like/don't like about the whole thing.

I am currently taking a History of Design course. It's been really neat to learn about the different elements of design, and look at all the history and development of all aspects of design from chairs to art. But part of the course is student presentations, and that's where it falls down. The presentations have had lots of interesting information, but that's been the only part of it that's good - presentation skills have been sorely lacking for more than a few people. I'd almost rather have someone dragging their finger nails across a chalk board because at least people wouldn't think it impolite when I stuck my fingers in my ears and cringed.

A couple of people just read their essays as their presentations. All of them were WAY WAY past the 15 minute time limit. Does no one actually practice to see how long their presentation runs? The last guy got his done in 15 minutes, but we still ran 10 minutes past our finishing time of 10PM. A couple of people have done the classic reading of the PowerPoint slides. A couple of people didn't even have a PowerPoint presentation - they used Windows' built-in picture viewer and let the pictures just flip by with no connection to what they were talking about.

And the last bit is one of the most disappointing too. The class rooms are in the ancient Craigie Hall, which means they are not really setup for media in any useful way. The lights are either full on or full dark. The presenters get to hide in the dark with their nervousness and give their presentations as the disembodied voice from the shadows. This makes it easy for people to fake themselves into safe place, but it makes it very hard to read their notes in the dark - again, slowing down the proceedings.

So now next week the heat is on. We have about 10 presentations to get through, and I really wonder if any of the other people presenting have any clue how long their presentations will actually run. I plan to go first so I can just be done with it so I can leave on time.