Achievements

During the honors period, I set a goal to enhance my presentation skills, focusing on appearing more confident and delivering my presented work with pride and conviction. My aim was to cultivate a more professional demeanor, specifically practicing speaking at a measured pace and avoiding distractions, such as 'fidgeting' with my hands/objects during presentations.

Presenting topics about which I had less knowledge was challenging and intimidating. This fear stemmed from the thought that others might havemore expertise on the subject, leading to potential judgment. To overcome this fear, I dicided to start giving presentations about myself and my personal life. This gave me the opportunity to feel at ease, as no one knows these aspects better than I do. because of this, I could concentrate fully on my speaking abilities, behaviour, and posture during the presentations.

Following each presentation, I received valuable feedback, both solicited and unsolicited. This feedback confirmed that my presentations were easily understood and that I did not create distractions. The process of self-reflection and targeted exercises significantly helped in improving my presentation skills, allowing me to stand before an audience with greater confidence. As a result, I feel more prepared for events such as my thesis defense.

In addition, I wanted to overcome my fear of bothering people or asking for help. By alleviating this fear, my goal was not only to promote my own personal growth but also to increase the chance of gaining more knowledge and support, especially for improved research. By communicating openly and clearly with my fellow students, I have discovered that it is perfectly fine to admit when the workload becomes too much and that I need assistance.

The realization that fellow students prefer you to indicate when you can't handle something, rather than becoming overwhelmed by the work and ultimately only doing half or seriously compromising the quality of the work, has changed my perspective. While recruiting sponsors for the conference, I realized that people don't mind at all when you ask for help. Many have been in the same "student" situation and believe that collaboration is necessary to properly train new young professionals.

In Catya's classes, it became clear to me that teachers don't mind explaining something multiple times either. During the KLM assignment, we were initially hesitant because we didn't understand the task, resulting in lower-quality results. However, Catya emphasized that she was willing to explain something as many times as necessary, as long as we listened and did our best. I took her advice to heart and started asking more questions actively.