The past week of ISM included our first presentation in the class. The presentation about ourselves is the building block of all the final presentation in ISM, so there is time to refine it. The presentation taught me a total of three very important things.
First off, checking the rubric to make sure all the required elements are included. I read over the rubric before even starting to think about my presentation, but when it came time that I wrote out my main speaking point, I forgot to include my quote, which was part of the speech. It is such a simple mistake that can easily be avoided by double checking with the rubric.
The second lesson learned was that without much preparation and practice, I say the word “like” very frequently. This habit needs to be dropped and through practicing and refining this presentation and all of the other presentations throughout the year, I can fix this issue.
Finally, and most importantly, my biggest lesson is that I need to focus more on the “why,” specifically why am I in ISM and why did I choose aerospace engineering. The “why” is a very important part of the class and basically explains every little thing that goes on in the class. So why am I in ISM studying aerospace engineering? I think it comes down to me being obsessed with leaving whatever is tying me down. I always enjoy physically building things and have played with legos my whole life. At the end of the day, I want to get my foot in the door and understand what it’s like to be a part of a team that works together to build a helicopter, a rocket, or even an airplane. The mechanics and the construction of something that can go against one of the main things that has tied down man - gravity - is just fascinating. Tinkering with all the little parts and having all that hard work being poured into something tangible that can achieve greatness is why I am here. To learn more and to have access to a career field which is usually set aside for those who have college degrees and already have carved a path for their life. I want this experience to decide if I want to carve out this path and to do something more than just tests and classwork during high school.
This upcoming week should teach me how to contact professional and to find professionals in my area as well as how to act and speak around them in order to make a good first impression. This is also the week that ISM kicks off, or so they say. There are three assignments due on Friday at 6 pm and the ISM 2 students claim that this is how the class usually is. So here we go.