Unfortunately, today was our last full day in Ireland 🙁 As i’m writing this, i’m also finishing up with all of my packing and wondering where all the time has gone.  With these last couple days, we’ve also had our final presentations!  Each group was assigned to a particular company where they took the “lead” on the site visit and then continued to do further research.

While preparing for this project and also while doing the actual presentation, I noticed a few things that I will definitely take home with me and be able to use in the future.  Personally, I think I do well at introducing a concept and providing thorough details and real life examples in order to support it.  For example, I was in charge of the Social and Technological aspects of our PEST analysis for Amazon.  After reviewing a topic, I would give examples from the site visit and also from my additional research to support my answer.  I also think my group as a whole did well with keeping our audience engaged.  After these long days in Dublin, it can often be difficult to give full attention to the presenters when all they do is read off the slides and lecture.  We made sure to use different resources, such as the whiteboard, and we even placed interactive activities within the presentation to keep everyone interested and involved.

One of the things most difficult for me is the fact that I often speak quickly when I get nervous.  This has definitely been a challenge for me in the past and I noticed that I was starting to rush my thoughts today during my presentation.  Moving forward, I can try to rehearse my parts more in order to feel more confident and prepared so that I will speak more clearly and slowly.  Along with it being my main challenge, this is also the one presentation skill I would choose to get better at.

Moving forward, I have learned the importance of taking precise notes during company visits and doing extensive background research on the topic before presenting.  I have also learned that it can definitely be beneficial to add in some comedic factors just to keep the audience’s attention.

Also, the food pictures in this blog are all from the Camden Kitchen which is where the representatives from CAPA treated us to for lunch for our final official meal here in Dublin! It was a fantastic restaurant and it was such a pleasure to get to know all the amazing people who have worked so hard to network with businesses and set up all these site visits from the past 2 weeks.