Presenting in the Auditorium!

Hi everyone! Today I will start saying that this post is probably going to be a bit too long because there are a lot of things that I'd like to tell you about! I know long posts aren't good, but I have too much to say ;)

First of all, as the title says, today was the day in which we had to present our Aerospace Technology project in the auditorium. We were the third group to present its project.

At first I was a bit nervous, wondering if we would do it well or what would happen, but guess what? After the first group finished his presentation, we had a lot of technical problems and the second group couldn't present until 30 minutes later or so! This was because there was a power failure in the whole building and every time that the lights turned on, three seconds later the lights turned off again. This was quite annoying but it actually relaxed me! 

This was our paper airplane :)

After this, my only fear was if our airplane would fly while presenting. I'll explain this: to draw the audience's attention, we decided to make a paper airplane and throw it during the presentation. It wasn't the typical one, so we didn't know if it would fly (although we tried it before the presentation, sometimes it flew and sometimes it didn't).

Luckily it flew! In fact, the whole presentation went really well. I've improved a lot since I started this course, and I'm very proud about how the presentation went and about my progress regarding communication skills (especially with oral presentations).

Moreover, after finishing all the presentations, we were told that our project about the aircraft prototype for 2040 was selected to be the one that will be presented on the 25th June to some companies that are coming to the university! This is great news because it means that real companies are going to know our names! It's nice to know that sometimes our effort is compensated with things like these.

And since today was a great day and obviously I'm feeling really good (although the day after tomorrow I have a very difficult and boring exam), I'd like to share with you an amazing cover of the song "Feeling Good":

This seems to be the last post, regarding the fact that we won't have more Communication Skills classes, so I'd like to thank you all for reading my blog and I hope you enjoyed it! Maybe someday I'll create a new blog and I hope you like that one too!

Thank you all very much for reading! Bye!

Aerospace Technology Project (V)

So, on Thursday (as all of these days) we have been working with the Aerospace Technology project. This time, the teacher told us that if we wanted to, any of us could voluntarily present our project to the rest of the class. As nearly every voluntary activity, no one seemed to want to do their presentations, but I thought it was a good opportunity to present before the real presentation. This way we would be constructively criticized and therefore improve our presentation skills for the final presentation.

In addition, at first I doubted about if I wanted to present or not because we didn't prepare it much and therefore it would be improvised. But actually the teacher told us this was good because if we were able to improve our presentation without preparing it, once it is prepared it would be even better!

In fact, it was quite clear that the presentation was improvised because instead of lasting the required 5 minutes, we presented for about 10 minutes. Besides this, I realize I am improving my presentation skills and the main reason for this is because we have had to do many presentations all along the course. 

This makes me come back to what I have already talked about in other posts: the importance of preparing and practicing in order to improve anything, especially oral presentations. 

That's all for today, thanks for reading!

Aerospace Technology Project (IV)

Hi again everybody! Well, on Wednesday we were told that the "best" project per course and per degree will be chosen to be presented to an external company. And if this happens, the chosen project will have to be presented in about 2 minutes on the 25th June. 

So we won't know which project will be selected until Tuesday (tomorrow) or maybe Wednesday, but if my group's project is chosen, it will be both positive and negative. The obvious positive part is that it will be presented to a real company, which is great, but therefore it will require more work, and it will be difficult to summarize such a project because if it is already difficult to present it in 5 minutes, in 2 minutes it is even harder. Despite this, I think the effort would be worth it!

Not much more to say for today. Thank you for reading!

Aerospace Technology Project (III)

So today we continued working on the Aerospace Technology Project but this time, instead of researching, I spent the whole class modifying the report that we have to do for this project. 

I started this report a few days ago and what I mostly did today was ask the teacher for all the many doubts and questions that came to my mind while doing it. So, when the teacher came to me, I started asking... and asking... and asking... and when it seemed that I had finished, something else came to my mind and therefore I had to ask another thing more. I am not exagerating. My partner even called me a "constant question machine", you can see it in his blog: http://timetochangeurself.blogspot.com.es/2013/06/my-partner-is-still-doing-questions.html.

Regarding this, I felt a bit guilty since I wanted to have the teacher only for myself, because whenever she left in order to answer other classmate's questions, another trillion questions bumped into my head, and I got a bit stressed, since time passed by and she was still answering other's questions and not mine. This lack of patience that I had might be caused because I really enjoy doing this project, which I think is quite interesting and useful. Therefore I want to do it as best as possible (I am very perfectionist) and whenever a doubt came to me, I just wanted to solve it quickly in order to continue doing the rest. In addition, after that class I had an exam and thus my head was thinking really quickly about many different issues, which increased my need of having a quick answer.

That's all for today. Thanks for reading!

Aerospace Technology Project (II)

Well, on Thursday we continued researching and doing the Aerospace Technology project about the design of the aircraft for 2040. In my opinion what we did that day doesn't have much to do with communication skills, but I really enjoyed it and some nice and creative ideas actually came to my mind during this class (maybe the fact of not having a "technical class" made my imagination flow more).

Therefore, I can't give any opinion or advice about issues related to communication skills. Actually this made me ask the teacher what I could write about in this post, because the only things that I thought about during the class were issues related to fuel alternatives for the aircraft or different designs for aircraft configurations.

To be honest, I already knew I wouldn't get any clear answer (because I know the teacher wants us to discover the answer by ourselves, making us reflect about what we ask), but despite this, I finally asked. Guess what? All (or at least the majority) of the answers to my questions weren't actually answers, but instead she asked me the same thing with other words in order to make me think about what I had just asked. I don't really like it when people aren't clear and answer questions with other questions, but (unfortunately) I realized that I also do that... 

This reminds me of the typical saying: "Do not do to others what you wouldn't want others to do to you".

That's all for today. Thanks for reading!

Aerospace Technology Project (I)

Hi again everybody! Well, what I most liked from today is that we continued doing the Aerospace Technology project about the design of the aircraft for 2040.

Before, we were told (again) that, apart from the presentation that we will have to do about this project in the Aerospace Technology class (more related to technical issues), we will also have to do another one in the auditorium (more related with communication skills) and this one will have to be much more "simple" because we will only have 5 minutes to present the whole project and we will do it in front of many people who may not have any idea about engineering. So we will have to manage how to explain all the technical issues about our project in a way which anyone can understand, but this will actually require a lot of effort in order to "simplify" what we want to say without relying on technical data or concepts. 

The main idea from this post is that it is really important to learn how to communicate something to people who don't have the same knowledge as you have, because in the future we will surely have to do so, and probably many times!
Not everybody is an engineer...

Thank you for reading!

No more activities!

So the class we had yestersday (4th June) was the first class without activities which actually are for the "Communication Skills" subject! This is because from now on we are going to be working on every presentation or project we have in other subjects, so that the teacher can help us make them better.

I find great this idea of having more time for doing things from other subjects because we actually need it! Now that the end of the course is near, apart from the final exams, we have so many projects and presentations to do and therefore, having an "extra time" to do them is quite a relief, and even more if we have the opportunity to do them better according to the suggestions that the "Communication Skills" teacher may give us.

I know this isn't a really interesting post, but I needed to talk about this relief! Thanks for reading!

Interview with the boss

As I have already said before in previous posts, in this subject (Communication Skills) we are constantly simulating a work environment instead of a class, so on the 30th May I had a sort of meeting or interview were the "boss" (the teacher) wanted me to assess myself and tell her how I think I am going in the "company" (the course) and if I think I have met my objectives or expectations, which I honestly think I have exceeded a bit, because I've done some things that I actually didn't expect to end up doing.

So I guess this is quite interesting, according to the fact that it makes us get closer to our future jobs. And although some people may think that having this subject in the first course of our degree is not a good idea (they think it would be better to have it in the last course, because then we are near to finding a real job), I really believe it is a great idea to have it at the beginning, because in my opinion, the sooner you start, the better, because that way you have the whole degree to improve what you are doing wrong. In addition, you can use everything you learn in this subject, not only in your future job, but also throughout all your subjects in your degree, practicing with every task or work, and making them in a better way. 

Remeber, practicing is one of the most important things in order to succeed!

That's all for this post. Thanks for reading!