dpwolf/blog

On Saturday I presented at the School of Applied Communications Graduate Research Conference at RMIT. In the past MA and PhD students have been assessed by their supervisors every six months or so as either not satisfactory, satisfactory, good or excellent. This was the first time the school has run a GRC which allows students to present their projects publicly in front of a panel, answer questions and receive advice and critique from other students and staff. In the past I have been along to see GRCs run by the design and architecture schools who make a big production out of the event, flying in special panel guests and really forcing students to defend their work with tough questions.

I found the process of getting ready for the GRC and presenting to be very helpful, making me look back over what I’ve been reading and doing and what I need to write more about. I made a couple of mistakes in my presentation, the main one was that I didn’t keep track of how much time I had. I was concerned about not rushing through my points without explaining them properly, and at the same time not repeating myself too much, I think I still repeated myself a bit. I spent a bit of time at the start of the presentation explaining my background and my initial ideas for the project. This was good on one hand because it framed my work and the developments I have made. It also put me at ease, since it was very easy to talk about. On the other hand it took too long which meant I didn’t have enough time to go into my latest research and Vidgets in enough depth towards the end of the presentation. For a 20 min presentation I guess you only have time for the highlights.

The general mood of the conference was pleasant and helpful from my experience and the presentations I saw. Unlike the architecture style panels which can be very intense, challenging the presenters on any mistakes or unclear points, my panel gave me opportunities to clarify a couple of points I explained badly in the Q & A session which followed and actually highlighted some links between ideas that I hadn’t identified.