Tag: Texas A&M

Presenting

I have a love-hate relationship with presenting.  On one hand, I love sharing my knowledge and experiences with people.  On the other hand, I am more of an introvert so it can be uncomfortable.  Recently, I have had to make presentations in my graduate school classes as well as in real life, so it is time to share what I have learned.

  1. Do not wait until the last minute.  I have this bad habit of procrastinating on things until they are so pressing they have to be done today.  I try and space out time working on my presentations so that I can always look at it with fresh eyes.  This also allows me to think through issues in my presentation to make sure that I am giving the best presentation I can.
  2. Understand that there will be technical glitches.  I like seeing great presenters because it shows me what is possible.  I recently got the opportunity to watch Cara North’s presentation on engagement and thought it was spectacular, so I tried to incorporate some of her ideas into an upcoming presentation.  I also know that sometimes things do not work out ideally, so I have a plan should the new ideas do not work out.  I also try and have every cord I could ever need or want with me, just so I am not reliant on the facility to provide something in an emergency.
  3. Know your audience.  Who I am presenting to matters.  My grad school peers will find certain things important/funny/enlightening/etc. while my co-workers might not.  do you best to cater your message to the group you are presenting to.
  4. Do not be afraid to admit things that do not go right.  In the worst case scenario, it is ok to be honest with the people watching your presentation.  When my presentation in grad school was not going the way I hoped it was, my peers understood and were gracious to me.  Everyone makes mistakes…afterwards, learn from your mistakes.

Baby’s First Road Trip

One of the bonuses for me when I was afforded the opportunity to not coach any more was that it freed me up to travel with my family during the football season.  When I was coaching, I was so exhausted on the weekends that it was almost impossible to do much of anything, and that was before we had a baby in the mix.  As I reflect on my schedule for the fall, we may have overdone our fall schedule with a baby, but she did really well on her first weekend road trip to Aggieland.

My wife graduated from Texas A&M, I did not.  With that being said, it is by far my favorite state university in Texas.  In fact, I almost transferred to A&M after my first year at Trinity University, but stayed and really enjoyed my time there.  A lot of my friends went to A&M so I’ve been there a lot of times throughout the years and it is a great college town.  Haley’s family has season tickets to the football games and this weekend was the first of the games we get the opportunity to go to.  The Aggies played Sam Houston State University as their final warm-up for the Alabama game next week, which we also get the opportunity to go to.  We left Caroline with her grandmother at the hotel in Bryan, TX and went to the game sans-baby.  She did awesome with her grandma and we had a good time at the game.  It rained most of the first half, which was new for me, but it also cooled off the weather quite a bit.  Normally we would expect to be sitting in 90-105 degree weather.  Saturday night it was 75 and windy…so pretty much perfect.   On the way back to Denton the following day she slept the entire 4-ish hour drive home!

Acouple of side-notes:

  • I got to go in the updated MSC at A&M.  It was awesome, but really crowded on game day
  • I also got to see a group of the Corps perform a yell at the gravesite of the dead mascots right near the stadium.  Every time I go to College Station I feel like I see another weird tradition I didn’t know existed.