It’s that time of the semester again; crunch time. Final papers, quizzes, project deadlines and project presentations plague our final one third of the semester. But as an SMU student I love to brag about crunch time, because asymmetrical information leads me to believe that there aren’t many other companies and institutions out there that go through such a busy few weeks like us. Friends and family have to constantly listen to how busy we are, and how stressed we are whilst we’re insinuating that we absolutely love the glorious heavy bout of work.

Presentations; its all about presentations. About the art, the technique, and the beauty of putting up a great presentation whilst dissecting bad presentations and destroying them in front of the whole class. When George Kuah steps up to the plate and is on the hot seat in front of the entire seminar room, George Kuah turns on super saiyan mode. The swagger and the confidence exudes from me, a swagger and confidence that stems from the fact that the SMU trait of believing that I’m better than everyone else is emblazoned on my heart. I apply everything that I learned in Communications class when I was a freshman, as well as the methods that I have learnt from the big time big shot awesome Cognitare training over the years. I talk with a voice that goes boomz, am clear and concise, and I try to use technical financial terms (no matter what class it is, it could be Spanish class for all I care) to let the audience know that George Kuah means “don’t play play”. And as a personal touch, I speak with an accent – but don’t worry, only during presentations (and when I’m participating in class). This magical accent that I suddenly conjure up every time I feel necessary, has no standard origin. It sounds like a mix of Donald Trump and Nanny Fine, with a touch of Michael Jackson and Winnie the Pooh. You might think it’s pretentious, but I assure you that it sounds oh so much more professional, especially with exchange students and/or a foreign professor. And lets not forget slamming other presentations, a deep tradition in our university’s history. Let nothing pass, leave no stone unturned. Wikipedia and google every damn thing that comes out of the mouth of other groups’ presenters, and you will find an angle for criticism. Have a calculator to calculate any dubious looking mathematical figures on the slides, and fire questions with a frown on your face. Snipe them down, and do it well. It’s like George Kuah perpetually holds an imaginary Counterstrike Arctic Warfare Sniper rifle in class – I’m the real Frederick Zoeller of presentation criticism. (I would give you a better sniper character comparison for you to identify with but Zoeller sounds so right, but then again, chances are, you wouldn’t know who Frederick Z0eller is because you haven’t watched Inglorious basterds on the movie screens because you’re an SMU student and the only screens that you watch are the bloomberg ones.)

Presentations might not count for a massive grade, but it projects both your professionalism and skill in SMU. The basic assumption of bad presenter = not capable = GPA <3.2 = bad reputation holds much truth, and seriously now, can you afford to have a bad reputation in a reputation sensitive school like ours?

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