On Monday and Tuesday evenings, you will participate in poster sessions. As a part of this activity, you will be asked to give a 1-minute lightning talk, and after the talks, you will stand by your laptop with your electronic poster and share it with other students and staff members. The below tips are meant to help you prepare. If you have any questions, feel free to email Scott Callaghan (scottcal@usc.edu).

Guidelines

Besides learning the HPC-related content we also want you to make the most out of this summer school by practicing your soft skills. The ability to network, present your work, or do a quick elevator pitch will be useful regardless of what sort of job you will have in the future. There will be times when you will be required to work efficiently with people coming from academic backgrounds different than yours. When you are just starting your career you may find talking to people you don’t know intimidating, especially if you think there is no common ground between you, or when they are important in your field. That is not unusual and should be overcome with practice. That is why we want to encourage you to take advantage of every opportunity during the summer school to develop, improve, and put your social skills to test. You will be surrounded by over 90 potential training partners so have fun talking to them!

Some of the things to keep in mind when giving a presentation or an elevator pitch:

  1. Know your audience - Quite often, you will have a very limited time to get your message across, so condense it. What is the most important thing that you want to communicate to this particular audience? Is it to highlight the importance of your work? Tell others about your latest project? Or simply introduce yourself and explain what you are working on? Some of the things you may want to cover are: introducing yourself, explaining what you do and how, and saying what makes you unique or who you work with. 
  2. Prepare - Once you know what you want to say, try writing it down. Make sure to cover only the most essential information. Be informative but avoid going into details. If someone wants to know more, they will ask you about it. Also, think about the language you are using - explain things as simply as possible, but don’t be patronizing. If you are preparing for a chat with someone from your field it’s fine to use a moderate amount of domain-specific jargon. If you are talking to someone from a different field try to either avoid it entirely or be prepared to provide a simple explanation.
  3. Practice - After you have written it down, try to deliver it. A nicely written text may not sound natural during a conversation so ask your friends to act it out with you. Use your opportunities wisely and talk to as many different people as possible, while trying to adjust your language and message depending on the situation.
  4. Ask for feedback & give feedback - If you are talking to someone in a more relaxed environment don’t be afraid to ask for his or her feedback. Everyone has to start somewhere, so people are generally happy to provide feedback, give tips and even share their experiences. You can also learn a lot by observing others give presentations and talks. Try to identify things that you think other people do well or maybe not so well and analyze your own style. Don’t be reluctant to help other people practice - you don’t need to be an expert to give them useful feedback. Whether you receive or give feedback, always try to be understanding, respectful, and constructive.

If you are not a native speaker and you feel that this has an impact on your soft skills, you may find the following tips useful:

  • Spend more time preparing what you want to say - try writing it down and saying it out loud.
  • Remember that your writing and speaking vocabulary are different - a writing vocabulary is usually bigger than a speaking one. When preparing your presentation try to use only words that come to you naturally when you are speaking.
  • Try to speak a bit slower and more clearly than you would normally. You can try recording yourself and see how understandable you find it.
  • Don’t worry too much about grammatical mistakes - people care much more about being able to understand what you telling them than how perfect your command of their language is.
  • If you are talking to someone in an informal context and want to improve your language skills, ask them to correct you if you happen to make a mistake 
  • Last but not least: Speak, speak, and speak. Practice makes perfect!
Last modified: Thursday, April 27, 2023, 11:10 AM