Final COMS 101 Post:

Taking COMS has been a great learning experience for me. As an engineer having good public speaking skills is very important while giving proposals and doing interviews. Going into this class I wasn't really sure what to expect but was keen on improving these skills. Now that the quarter has come to an end I can happily say that I have accomplished this goal. Before taking this class I would always get extremely nervous while presenting which led to me relying heavily on note cards and even having my arms and legs shake uncontrollably. Now I feel much more comfortable talking in front of an audience and rely on note cards very little. Part of what made this class so enjoyable was the fact that there were so many options when it came to the assignments so I could really choose a topic that interested me. My favorite assignment this quarter was the how-to speech. I was really able to personalize this by going home and actually changing my car's oil with my dad. After doing this I couldn't wait to share this with my classmates and this made presenting and writing a speech more fun than just completing an assignment. In close second was the impromptu speech. I felt like the class as a whole tackled this speech incredibly and I couldn't wait to hear what each student was going to come up with on the spot. My least favorite speech was the interview speech, but that's only because I liked all the other ones more. What I felt made this class more special than others is the bond that we form with our classmates because of all the personal stories that we shared with each other. What benefitted my learning the most was watching the YouTube videos linked on PolyLearn. I am a visual learner so having these as resources definitely helped improve my speaking skills. While conducting research for this class I found Statista and Academic Search Premiere to be the most helpful. Statista has data on almost any topic, and I was able to find a plethora of relevant articles on Academic Search Premiere. Overall, this has been one of my most enjoyed class because I actually didn't mind waking up early for it. Each and every day had something new and exciting to look forward to.

Round 3 Speech: Monroe's Motivated Sequence

For the final speech round I wanted it to be my best speech to really reflect all that I have learned over the course of this quarter. Unfortunately I don't think it was my strongest speech because I had trouble finding enough data and facts to use. I chose to do a persuasive speech using Monroe's Motivated Sequence for the final round because I felt it would be the most interesting. My speech was on the blanket ban of skateboards here at Cal Poly, and how we need to make a change and allow skateboards back on campus. This is a very important topic for me being a skateboarder and not being able to ride whatsoever on campus. I tried to convey this in my speech, but feel like I could've done a better job by putting more emotion in my voice. My transitions between the five different sequences of the speech could have been better as well. Something I did well for this speech was bringing in my skateboard to use as a prop which also built my ethos showing I am a skateboarder. Overall this was a fun speech to write using MMS, but would like to next time chose a topic with more information on.