Journal Club: a struggle in 3 acts

I'm very, very relieved to be done with my Journal Club presentation. Cannot stress how relieved I am. I'm actually surprised that I didn't freak out more during the presentation, but I think I practiced enough that it became sort of muscle memory at times. I practiced with notecards and I looked at them every time, but when I was doing it for real, I stopped using them about halfway through. That was crazy! I didn't expect to do that at all. 

I think the hardest part of the Journal Club assignment was figuring out how to create a coherent storyline from the paper. My paper ended up with a lot of results, so I had to figure out which were important and which were not as integral to the paper's main message. Making the actual presentation and running through it helped me understand the paper a lot more, because I had to consider it from the perspective of someone who had never read it.

I think this also gave me more confidence in my presenting skills, which I'll definitely have to use in the future. Looking back at some of my old scientific presentations, like the ones I've done for my UROP, I want to cringe a little. Okay, a lot. But now I know better! Thanks Journal Club!

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