After our January Midterm ended, I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. I was stressing and preparing very hard the week before and it ended up going a lot better than I anticipated! I finished my trifold in time and I barely stuttered in my presentation. It was smooth and (somewhat?) logical.
I think overall the midterm as a whole was very helpful. It forced me to organize a lot of the ideas I had absorbed from Thinking, Fast and Slow and organize them in a coherent way with a real-world application. Having a panel to present it to made it all the more realistic.
Leading up to the midterm, I had attention, but no time. I had seating auditions for my youth orchestra going on as well as other exams and projects. January is always busy but I think having even one extra week would’ve been very helpful (like last year). I think with the little time I had, I managed my time pretty well, especially during the last week where I spent a lot of my time working on the midterm.
It’s hard to pinpoint which moments I was most proud of, but I think small, general reactions were what really made me most proud. For example, when some members of the panel or other parents would say an audible “wow” or “fascinating” after explaining an idea or anecdote to them. One of my friends even went home and tried the “Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement” experiment on his mom!
The piece of feedback that stuck out to me the most was Mrs. Peschieri saying I read off my trifold a lot. I honestly think I barely did (same with Mr. Bott) but this means I still have improvements to be made in my presentation skills regardless.
For the next question I will explore in my topic, I honestly don’t know yet. However, it will definitely be more interdisciplinary. I need to go beyond just one single text and see how the ideas I’ve learned about can be applied in different ways.