Presentations and Such

I write this before class, which tonight will be all about lightning talks on your counter stories.

But, then like last week, we’ll have some time to talk about uncovering “hidden curriculum” things or talking our way through making sure all students understand things openly and inclusively. The days where graduate faculty assume that students should know things is way over. Instead, it’s way past time to make sure there are no hidden or unwritten rules or we openly talk about assumptions and starting places.

While some in graduate programs want to spend every second on the readings cause there are hundreds of pages to get through a week, my approach is different. As you know we read a couple or three things, then you’re set loose on your own path. What that does is frees up some class time to do other things just as an important as learning the scholarship in the field. That is, we need to make sure we are teaching graduate students how to do this job and making clear what skills they are learning that can be transferred to a job in higher education or a job outside of higher education. This has been my stance for a few years, but this year in the midst of a pandemic and a collapsed job market that will take years to recover (if it ever does) it’s more important than ever.

So tonight we’re gonna end the class talking about what makes a good presentation, which is why y’all had to read things about presentations and design and nothing else. It’s a skill to be able to hone in on the main idea that you really want people to know, and with academic topics filled with nuance and complexity this skill becomes even more important. But we don’t really talk about it and teach it. That’s why we are still sitting through presentations at conferences that never really make a point!

We’ll also spend some time talking about how to choose conferences to go to, how to prepare for one, how to write abstracts, and other specifics to things associated with conferences and presentations.

I hope this conversation tonight leads to some other questions we can tackle in the last weeks of class. There is so much to cover about strategies in getting through grad school (that carry over into other roles) and topics that are of importance in making sure students know how to navigate grad school with their mental health intact. So be thinking of questions. And if you don’t want to ask them out loud in front of the other students, you know how to reach me.

The meaning of “and such” in the title this post is to make sure you know we can and will always make time to answer those questions that never seem to have a place anywhere else.