Research Day
Yesterday was Research Day at Tufts. It is the day when all the veterinary students who did summer research projects under the summer research program presented our findings. A few students who did projects funded by different programs also chose to present.
This is my third year at Tufts, and the first year I've attended Research Day. I always wanted to attend it before, but I am embarrassed to admit that there was always some test to study for that seemed more important. This year, I was presenting, but I also had more free time than in previous years, so I managed to see about half the talks.
Students are given eight minutes to present and four minutes to answer questions. I had five slides in my PowerPoint presentation, and I rehearsed my presentation multiple times, always coming in just under or over eight minutes. I don't know how my timing was on the actual day, but no one complained that I ran over.
The talk went well, at least if you judge by the fact that I didn't say "um" too many times, and the audience laughed at my joke. Clinicians asked questions which implied that they had understood what I was talking about, and I was able to answer their questions without ever having to admit ignorance of the answer.
At the end of next summer, when I defend my Masters thesis, I'll have to give an hour long talk, so I guess this was practice for that, but an hour seems an awful lot longer than eight minutes. Public speaking is definitely a lot easier for me than it used to be, though.
And the big news is that LPK won second prize! Her talk on the genetics of hemangiosarcoma in golden retrievers was really good. First prize went to a conservation medicine project. Conservation medicine projects involve looking into why certain species are endangered or otherwise faring poorly, and it was really nice to see Tufts supporting this sort of research as well as LPK's clinical research, instead of limiting prizes to traditional laboratory bench research projects.
This is my third year at Tufts, and the first year I've attended Research Day. I always wanted to attend it before, but I am embarrassed to admit that there was always some test to study for that seemed more important. This year, I was presenting, but I also had more free time than in previous years, so I managed to see about half the talks.
Students are given eight minutes to present and four minutes to answer questions. I had five slides in my PowerPoint presentation, and I rehearsed my presentation multiple times, always coming in just under or over eight minutes. I don't know how my timing was on the actual day, but no one complained that I ran over.
The talk went well, at least if you judge by the fact that I didn't say "um" too many times, and the audience laughed at my joke. Clinicians asked questions which implied that they had understood what I was talking about, and I was able to answer their questions without ever having to admit ignorance of the answer.
At the end of next summer, when I defend my Masters thesis, I'll have to give an hour long talk, so I guess this was practice for that, but an hour seems an awful lot longer than eight minutes. Public speaking is definitely a lot easier for me than it used to be, though.
And the big news is that LPK won second prize! Her talk on the genetics of hemangiosarcoma in golden retrievers was really good. First prize went to a conservation medicine project. Conservation medicine projects involve looking into why certain species are endangered or otherwise faring poorly, and it was really nice to see Tufts supporting this sort of research as well as LPK's clinical research, instead of limiting prizes to traditional laboratory bench research projects.