I took a public speaking course a long time ago. I had a classmate during that time which...well, imagine the most stereotypical person you could possibly think of when I say "neckbeard," because this pretty much matched that criteria exactly. This time predated the widespread use of fedoras, but every day he would come to class with his greasy black hair in a ponytail, a (morbidly) curiously stained wifebeater, tan cargo shorts, and either running shoes or the socks+sandles combo.
Our first speech was graded solely on participation and it was only for us to tell a story about ourselves. Most speeches were either inoffensive or boring, but then he came up for his speech. Last, naturally. It was incredibly apparent that he didn't prepare at all, as he went over time and routinely rambled throughout the presentation. However, his performance was definitely one that stood out from the rest of the class. The topic he picked was of his own father's suicide. However, he presented it in such a fashion that he seemed almost uncaring (and not in an "emotionally detached" kind of way) about the subject matter. It was very clearly done to get pity points since he didn't properly prepare for the speech (which was pointless anyways because simply doing the speech netted you an A). However, merely dumb and lazy wasn't enough for his speech, so he chose to be offensive as well. About midway through his speech, he went off on a tangent decrying Christianity since it supposedly didn't help him cope with the loss of his father, where he literally called god a "magic wizard in the sky," twiddling his fingers and rolling his eyes. During this moment, you could hear audible gasps from the crowd--either from the more religiously inclined, or simply people who sat in disbelief that he felt it was appropriate to say this.
Before you start feeling pity about him, well, don't. Actually, if anything, you should feel nothing more than apathy for him. You'll see why soon.
Wishing to maintain the status quo he established for himself (or he was just fat and lazy), our next speech was meant to be informative and he prepared just so. We were given three entire weeks to practice and the professor gave us plenty of advice and scheduled appointments to help anybody who needed them to prepare. I can't say for certain if he took advantage of these opportunities, but if he did, it definitely wasn't apparent in his work. On presentation day, when it was his turn to talk, he waddled up to the podium with his bag. In the lecture the day before, our professor mentioned that it's a good idea to know your audience before planning your speech (it is). Our professor then suggested asking our fellow students if they're in any way interested in our speech topic and structuring the speech based off of that. My classmate took this to heart, in a way. His speech was on Dungeons and Dragons, and remembering what our professor said during lecture, he prefaced his speech by simply asking the audience if they had played the game before through a show of hands. You know, completely ignoring that you're meant to do this
before giving your speech, not during, and basing the structure off of that.
It's worth noting that his aforementioned topic of Dungeon and Dragons would, in any other circumstance, be a very clever decision. The professor was actually a fan of the game, and an informational speech on the subject would've most definitely enticed him. However, instead my classmate had made possibly the worst topics possible, as now the professor would be judging the presentation with an even more critical eye--not something you want when you put the most minimal effort possible into your speech.
Satisfied with the minimal show of hands from the crowd, he prepared his visual aids. Note that a visual aid in a speech is often to be saved until it is relevant to present to the audience, then just as quickly put away when it no longer is needed. It should also be important to the speech, and something you can't simply describe with words. His visual aid was just the boxes and instructional manuals for Dungeons and Dragons, which he propped up in front of him on the floor and kept there until his speech ended. Sadly, this lack of proper use of a visual aid was only a sign of things to come.
Reaching into the same bag which held his visual aids, he revealed his speech by the tune of a thick paper packet, wrinkled and stapled together. He drops the packet onto the podium and it lands with a wet slap. He clears his throat and begins tediously reading from the packet verbatim. He had committed absolutely nothing in his speech to memory and relied on the packet entirely, yet somehow still flubbed his speech by stuttering at a certain segment anyway. Instead of pausing and recovering, he decided the best way to reorient his speech was to babble in an exaggerated fashion as a joke, loudly blubbering "BLAH BL-BLAH BL-BLAH BL-BLAAA" into the microphone before continuing reading his paper. This was received with audible hisses and groans in secondhand embarrassment from the crowd.
Oh, did I mention that he was still wearing his tried and true wifebeater/cargopants/sandle combo that he wore every day? Because he did.
Moving on, as his reading droned endlessly, I thought to myself that the wording seemed oddly specific, that it was too concise and academic-sounding to be his own writing. So out of curiosity, I wrote down the exact words of one of his lines. When I looked up the words later, I discovered that the words were stolen precisely from Wikipedia. I'm not sure if he stole his entire speech from there, but I was able to identify certain segments of his speech within the website's page for Dungeons and Dragons. While I did find this amusing, I decided against ratting out my classmate. After all, his speech was already a failing grade, I figured (and later discovered).
The painfully slow and methodical speech continued until he went over his allotted time of seven minutes or so. We were given a strict time window for our speeches, but we were allowed to go over a few minutes or so before being cut off at the cost of a lowered grade. My classmate's speech was the only one in the class to reach this point, as he went clear past the eleven minute mark and my professor walks up to the stage clapping over him and proclaiming "very good, next speaker please!" My classmate then, in an attempt at "damage control," loudly states "I knew I should have cut it down a few pages!" As if the excuse would improve our already low opinion of his speech in any way. Thinking back, he also accidentally revealed that he didn't practice his speech by yelling that (just in case it wasn't obviously already).
With the speeches over, we discovered our grades at the next class session. I look over towards my classmate, who is staring down at his paper with a look of absolute shock. To this day, I wonder what he was expecting when he did nothing but study at the last second and print out his speech to read to the whole class while going over time and misusing his visual aids. In other words, failing every possible criteria phenomenally. He gets up from his seat, grabs his bags, and leaves his graded speech outline before waddling towards the door in sheer frustration. Mid-lecture, mind you. As the door slammed shut, the professor merely glaces over for a split second before continuing. When class had ended, I couldn't contain my curiosity. I took a brief glance at his graded speech outline to see for myself. Just as my classmate was, I too was shocked.
He got a D instead of the F I had expected him to receive, and for a multitude of reasons, most of which I had mentioned. However, and most amusingly, he didn't prepare a speech outline, so the professor had to make it himself during my classmate's speech so that he could grade it properly. Because of how disjointed the speech was, the professor's faux outline had many segments crossed off in confusion and plenty of question marks as he struggled to follow along. Most interestingly, the professor also noted that the speech sounded plagiarized, and had asked for my classmate to hand over the packet he was reading from so he could check to see if it was stolen.
Perhaps the potential realization that he had been caught was why my classmate never returned to class again. But like an idiot, he never dropped the class as he still showed up in the class listing even though we were early enough in the course to withdraw. Not only did he get an F for never showing up again, but the F remained permanent on his academic record since he didn't properly end the class. I never saw him on the campus again, and save for an encounter in the grocery store where he revealed a very shocking revelation, he disappeared from the face of the Earth entirely.
The "shocking revelation?" In the store I began making smalltalk with him and accidentally touched on the topic of his parents, forgetting his father committed suicide. I apologized, and he responded with confusion, asking what I meant. When I asked isn't his father dead, he chuckled and told me the truth. He had completely fabricated his father's suicide solely for the very first speech.
fftopic: Is college worth the mountain of student debt one can accrue, or should one avoid it and find other ways of making a living?
There's so many options for you to avoid getting the ever infamous pile of college debt while attending, especially if you have a clear set goal on what you want to do. Scholarships, educational planning, and programs depending in your interest in a career.
