A Piece of Wisdom

One of the most dreaded things that happens in the first or second class of semester is volunteering for class presentations. How it will often work is a sheet of paper goes around the room and everyone writes their name down for a week to talk on a given subject. Nobody wants to be The Last Person To Sign up. Said Last Person To Sign Up almost invariably has to go first (and if they’re really unlucky, they’ll only have one week to prepare).

Now what are commonly viewed as the prime choices tend to be in the mid to latter half of semester, but I’m here to argue in favour of that dreaded first spot.

The Student Who Goes First might risk misunderstanding instructions, or may miss out on a strong example of how to approach the material, but here’s the so-called “worst” possible reason for going first: the student has to get to work the first week of semester, while it still feels like summer. So why go first when you can give yourself, say, six weeks to prepare?

Well, lets be honest. How many of us will really use those six weeks to whip that presentation into 12-15 minutes of perfection? No, those weeks will be spent with other deadlines, late night tv, videogames, anything but working on the assignment. That is, until we get to week five and four days and realize, “Whoops.” There are only three days left to produce this thing.

So why not get it out of the way? If you’ve turned procrastination into an artform (like myself), there is value in being forced to get that assignment over and done with. You also won’t have to worry about it when the bigger projects are coming due.

But best of all? Once you’ve presented, it’s smooth sailing from there. As your classmates forget all about their assignment, or are juggling six things due in one of those sleepless end-of-semester weeks, you can sit back, and privately chuckle, smugly satisfied that you decided to go first.

Kaitlyn