Speak Out: Harness Your Voice is essentially a crash-course on Public Speaking squished into an hour and half. I highly recommend you take this workshop if you can grab it, because it teaches an essential skill that all university students, regardless of their future profession, should obtain to some degree.

As a teacher to be, I learned how to project my voice, and to understand the importance of really ‘harnessing’ my voice in an effective manner. A good speaker also makes for a good presenter, and if you are dreading and presentations that you have to do this term, "Speaking Out" might help you clear those butterflies away!

This workshop is hosted by brilliant former Public Speaking professor, James Allen. He starts his sessions with an introduction to Public Speaking (its importance and why we practice Public Speaking), as well as the theories behind it. After that Allen gets into a series of great exercises that really help you put the theories in practice amongst your peers.

Among the many things I learned, the one that is most salient to me is how good public speaking takes practice and good structure. Much like writing an essay, you need to plan out and structure your speech or presentation. Good public speaking skills translate to good leadership, therefore if you are able to coherently present yourself and your ideas, then you will consequently become a better leader.

Once you’ve got a good structure down pat, you need to a) practice, b) practice and c) practice! You can’t practice enough in Public Speaking, in fact the worst that can happen from too much practice is that you’ll be perfectly prepared!

As you can see, public speaking well is very important, therefore the "Speaking Out" workshop becomes a very valuable tool. Check out the next session on February 11, 2010.

Review by Afroza.