Last night was The Night. We had our presentation and got our grades.
And I need to vent a little bit.
There were 3 groups presenting, and we were lucky (thank you, St. Thomas Aquinas, patron saint of students, and St. Bridgid of Ireland, the other one!) to be able to go first. As we were setting up, B, one of our group members, asked the prof how long we had, and the prof said, "Oh, about 40 minutes." Well...T in our group had asked that question the night of our "final" which was thinly disguised as a "mid-term" exam and we were told "about 1 hour." So that's what we planned. Since we had so few groups presenting, we figured, heck with it. We did our hour. That included a 20-minute video segment of W in our group, since W was absent due to a job interview -- and in this market, Lord knows you just go to the interview, and we make do with what we need to do to get our presentation off the ground.
Luckily, Hubby was able to videotape W and B was able to get that into the presentation. I'm tellin' ya - it was slick! It was funny, because we talked about what to wear, and it ended up we all did "office fancy" --- and T and I nearly wore the same top, which would've been funny, since we'd have looked like Tony Orlando and Dawn... But both of them, B and T, are too young to know who those people are. Ahhhhhhh, youth.
We did our presentation and it went well. There were no typos on our slides (of course), and the majority of our slides had a "hook" to them, if you were paying attention, that related to the subject being presented. We all looked at our audience and only briefly noted the slides on the screen behind us.
We were peer-graded, plus the instructor. The other two groups (here's where the rant comes in) did their presentations in less time than we did, though the second group did do about 45 minutes - they had one less person in their group, so that made sense.
But....(cover your ears, here's the rant - or at least Part A of the rant) they had typos on at least 50% of their slides. Both of the other groups. And several times, they read from the slides. With their bodies partially turned toward the screen.
OK, I'm picky. This is the last class in your MBA. You're an adult student. That presumes that at some time, somewhere, you've had to speak in public. It also presumes that somewhere along this track, you've had a communications class or two, and you've done small group work in other classes, and presented in front of at least a class-sized group. And you may have had to use a PowerPoint presentation. You need to spell-check them. Twice. At least. And please don't read to us. We can all read, I hope, by this time.
Part B of the rant: Today, I heard that one of the people in one of the other groups was "mad" at us, and put that complaint onto FaceBook because "we graded poorly."
Well, your presentation was poor, and if it was mine to do, there'd have been extra points taken off for "reading to the screen" and "typographical errors." Look, I know everyone's human and there are people who are petrified of public speaking, but by this time - again - you should either have had a chance to rehearse or you should be a little more adept at faking being able to do it well.
I talked to W in our group, and explained my objections. Met with agreement. It's not that I'm overly-exacting, though I am. It's that I expect a certain amount of professionalism at this level. We had a bloop in one of our video pieces; you just move on. Like when I flub a chord --- I've learned that people notice it less if you keep going. When you stop dead in your tracks, they kinda notice that the music isn't playing!
W says that it might be that the other groups "wanted to do the bare minimum." And if that's so, my grading of their presentations reflected that. If my work and the work of my team is "A" level, then I demean my efforts and those of team by giving a sub-par group an "A" grade.
Anyway, it's done. The book will be resubmitted (it's in proof stage right now) and will be ready for sale shortly. The instructor stopped dead at my desk and picked up our book, saying "Wow, this is gorgeous!" Yay!!!
So now, I can concentrate on some freelance gigs that I've got, I can knit and I have to find something else to do with my Tuesday nights. My mother says I'm "much more human" and not as cranky. She mentioned something about tossing raw meat to me during the class, but I told her today that like as not - I'd probably have whipped it back to her!!
Off to go see what the weather is doing. Supposed to be a winter storm watch, but so far, nothing but cold.
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