Procrastination, PowerPoint skills essential

Even though the semester’s half way over, some students still haven’t learned to quickly and efficiently prepare presentations last minute without having a mental breakdown or embarrassing themselves before their peers.

Procrastination is a lifelong skill utilized at least twice in every professional career that should be mastered by the first month of college, if not high school. Most undergraduates try to avoid procrastination because of chronic panic attacks or a false air of superiority, but this truly American practice is, within itself, an art.

The first step to a successful last-minute presentation is convincing an instructor the project is vital to academia and without these five precious minutes the collegiate world will implode. This task is easily accomplished by playing to the professor’s personal agenda. If the teacher holds a doctorate from studying the homoerotic pottery of Norway, then the presentation, whether it’s on butterflies or the Middle Passage, should include something about questionable vases. Quoting the instructor’s thesis is a tad extreme, but using their grad school professor’s material or family photographs to support an argument is acceptable. Not only will they be flattered and/or frightened, but the presentation appears more relatable.
After selecting a topic, the next step is making a PowerPoint slideshow look like it took ten hours to construct. Pictures are key. Photos take thirty seconds to Google, copy and paste, but give the illusion of research. In addition, PowerPoint includes various color schemes and designs, which instructors assume students construct from scratch or spending hundreds of hours customizing to mirror the topic. To avoid looking like a simple theme picker, customize the bullets to fit the subject. Instead of boring circles, use the French flag, Chaucer’s face, or tears to represent the numerous moments of self doubt and depression students encounter between midnight and 8:00 a.m.

When the presentation is finished, the key to convincing a professor the procrastinated project is publication-worthy lies in the presenter’s outfit. If someone shows up with a well researched, well prepared presentation in gym shorts and backwards cap, he will inevitably fail. However, a vest, tie, and American flag pin can turn any classroom project into a professional conference. Statistics show female students who wear business skirts are less likely to use contractions, while male students who wear business skirts can use any word in their arsenal. To succeed, one need only look the part and shave his or her legs.

Although some consider these tips common sense, these three steps can take any presentation from ordinary to extraordinary. If any student is still wary of last minute presentations because of the unflattering stereotype, just look at every professor in America. 98% of teachers pull at least one all-nighter a year to prepare for classes, seminars or symposia. The other 2 percent have tenure.

Posted by Steve Holbert on Oct 6 2011. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.