Lakeville North High School Application Research Paper

At Batavia High School, I have gladly been able to participate in many different activities. Since Freshman year, I have been in Student Council and Track and Field. I was blessed with year and last to be allowed into National Honor Society as the Publicist, National English Honor Society, National Spanish Honor Society, National Science Honor Society, and National Social Studies Honor Society. Each have helped me to connect more with my community and school to both benefit myself and all that is around me. Also this year, I was able to because the Executive Board Secretary for Student Council where I was able to help plan many different events throughout the year. One of those events include homecoming, in homecoming I was heard of decorations

I was three years old standing in front of over two hundred people in my church, about to sing “Go Tell It on The Mountain” for our yearly Christmas extravaganza. I remember being paralyzed with fear and running off stage crying into my mother’s arms. Two years later, I refused to let fear get to me, and I was determined to get back on stage and sing. My five-year-old self was very proud of finally getting to perform my favorite Christmas Hymn, and I fell in love with being able to sing in front of others. If there is one thing that has shaped me who I am today: it would be music.

When I walked into that big, scary audition room for the first time when I was five, I had no idea of the journey performing would take me on and the innumerable effects it would have on me. While I do give due credit to the childhood role models and lessons I found through theatre, nothing compares to what I’ve

You have been invited to give a speech to the Australian Speaking Society on the topic ‘great speeches – the secret of success.’

My journey began at Lakeland Community College (LCC) in Kirtland, Ohio in 2011. I started taking general courses, not knowing which direction would be the best for me to go into. This would be my greatest obstacle to overcome, but I knew with certainty that I would soon find out which direction to set sail in. I spent two years at LCC and gained confidence in my abilities and suddenly realized my great potential through all the doors that education started to open for me. I had an amazing opportunity to enter a speaking competition at LCC and placed in first. I realized when my goal was to give the audience an impactful message and was not focused on winning, that communication was one of my strongest assets and greatest passion. Discovering this was a primary blessing and actually winning the competition became a secondary delight.

Throughout this Summer I have watched myself blossom into a more confident public speaker. Prior to this class, public speaking had never been a natural ability, and I was always afraid and full of anxiety before a speech. Speaking for more than a few minutes seemed to be an impossible task. Skills of knowing how to evaluate myself as a public speaker were absent, and I did not know how to become an effective listener.

At the age of thirteen, I started to dance in front of an audience. I had loved the concept of dance many years before that but I was always scared to perform in front of others. My first performance was the most thrilling yet nerve-wrecking moment of my life. I received compliments one after another the entire night and thought to myself, “Maybe this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.” But it wasn’t. My passion for dance had grown so much over the next few years but something was missing. I felt that there was more to me that I was not showcasing and I wanted to find the missing piece.

The night was filled with fun and laughter, but not the jeering that I had nervously anticipated. Even though the crowd was small, to this day I swear that it was the biggest applause I have ever received. I remember with great clarity the words that I heard as I left that night: “Never stop doing what you are doing.” I did not. Inspired by the performers I had witnessed, I began practicing more and even started to write original music. I continued to learn more things about the powerful art form known as song. From this point, a thought began to crystallize into a dream, and I became more serious about pursuing a career in this field of work. I continued to attend these open mics every available Sunday. I even experiencing new music venues, but none seemed to match the happy and positive energy of “Chaplin’s”. I grew more and more confident while performing and interacting with audience members. One Sunday in mid-December, I saw a flyer for a competition based on open mics. I immediately signed up and auditioned. I was ecstatic when I received the email that I made it to the next round. Ms. Lori guided me along this journey and once again helped me to pick and vigorously practice my set. On the night of the competition in the beginning of January, “Chaplin’s” was more crowded than the typical open mics. After an amazing night of unique and powerful music, the results revealed that I had

Ever since I was a little girl i’ve had this burning passion to be on a stage. Acting is everything to me. I grew up with it having a special place in my heart. I think most of the reason why I love acting is because when i’m having a bad day or I just want to “escape” I know that when it comes to acting you get to be a different person. You get to have a good day and you get to “escape”. My brother and sister both also act. I feel as though I take a lot more serious than them both. Probably because they both have amazing voices, but for me acting is all I have. I can’t remember when I first loved acting, but my first time on a stage playing a role was when I was in Kindergarten. Even before then I was a “diva”. I would put on plays, do some of my gymnast routines, and tap dance for my mom. Around that time my dad wasn’t home a lot. He’s a veteran so my mom would always record me and/or my sister. There’s still a video of me putting on a musical and singing an original song (most of it said “what the” because I thought that ‘heck’ was a ‘bad word’) somewhere. I know that a lot of people believe that it’s not going to happen, and it might not, but I’m never going to stop trying. Just because someone else's dreams fail doesn’t mean mine will.

No one is a perfect human being. We all make mistakes and we all have areas in which we can improve. Throughout of the course of COMS 130, I have learned how to effectively give introductory, informative, and persuasive speeches. There are areas I personally succeeded at and areas where I could use some improvement. It’s important to reflect on our past experiences to better our future ones. I will reflect on my strengths and weaknesses in my speeches, concepts such as the speaker-audience relationship or deliberating in good faith, and how these skills will aid me outside of classroom situations.

I am here today carrying out the task to talk about this year’s theme, “Connecting You to Career Success,” as way to help me develop my public speaking skills. As a member of SkillsUSA, I want to be successful in the career of my dreams. This is a thought that is shared by many others, and is one of the driving forces as to why we have joined this organization.

As life is flying past me on both sides, I am walking, no, I am jogging, no, I am sprinting up over the hill. I can already see the finish line off in the distance, it is still pretty far away but closing in fast. At this point in the race to the end of the semester I am glad I am going through a training program called public speaking. There is no way possible I would be over the hill looking down with the finish line in sight, if it wasn’t for this exercise program. This program has been getting me in shape every day since the start. With two presentations complete I felt a little more confident in my abilities to give a presentation. I would like to think that I am getting better and better with every opportunity I am given to speak. My presentation three was an overall improvement off of my presentation two. I took skills from my first two presentations and blended them with new acquired skills to strengthen Presentation three.

When you see a shy, quiet girl, performing is not the first word that comes to mind yet, here I was auditioning to be on the competitive dance team. I walked into the studio on a Saturday morning; those were the same doors I’ve walked through for multiple years. With my black leotard, pink tights, and hair in a perfect bun, you would never imagine how many butterflies were in my stomach. Doing something I'd never think of doing was thrilling until I walked in and saw other girls in black leotards, pink tights, and hair also in a bun. The only thing that differentiated us were our audition numbers.

I nodded my head in agreement. Performing was something I had been thinking about lately; something that had truly impacted my life. I have been involved on stage numerous times through my nineteen years of living, and I still don’t understand the troubling process of performing yet. Cool and collective people, in normal circumstances, turn into babbling victims of stage fright once they get in front of a crowd. Experts who have acted for their whole life, forget lines on stage. Palms get sweaty, focusing becomes harder, knees begin to quiver, and time begins to warp to a slow crawl.

For the entirety of my life, I have been terrified and uncomfortable with public speaking. Whether it be persistently hoping my elementary teachers did not ask me to read a paragraph of our class book out loud or dreading a high school presentation; this aspect of me has remained constant. So, when I realized I had to take CAS 101, I was nervous and overwhelmed, yet excited at the opportunity to improve my oral rhetoric skills. Throughout the years I have grown in my confidence and my nerves have slightly reduced; nonetheless, I still felt ill-equipped to succeed in the class. While my comfort made a minor improvement, I still struggled with my voice. Because I talk in a monotone and unclear manner, I have found it difficult to deliver an engaging and dynamic presentation. Yes, I was aware that this class would be a challenge, but I yearned for the terrific strides I would make. Thankfully, I leave the class with confidence and a clearer understanding of my strengths and weakness. Strengths of organization and content, and weaknesses of vocal delivery and extemporaneous style. With this, I will be able to continue my growth as a speaker and better prepare myself for my future career. Instead of envying the presentation abilities of others and allowing it to decrease my confidence, this class showed me that I too can deliver a fluid portrayal of my ideas. Although the journey of discovering my voice is far from complete, this course facilitated my understanding of my