School Is Out! Sorry for the Delay

This may have been meThank you all for being so patient for waiting for this post. It was a crazy week last week trying to get my presentation done for my final class last Thursday. The lack of posts has been a result of relaxing and having nothing on my mind other than getting my grade back. I ended up with 30 slides, which I will be posting as soon as I take care of some disclaimers on some logos I used.

Because of a family emergency one of my team members had, I also volunteered to take on the presentation itself, so it was a bit of a one man show on the final night. The third member did a great job with flipping the slides, and we got through with flying colors.

I sent my slides up to my professional mentor, Starbucker (Mr. Executive himself), to get his feedback and got his very insightful comments implemented on Wednesday. The day of the presentation, I did a mock proposal to 3 of my co-workers in a conference room during a break from the daily grind of documents. I got one jaw drop, one “Wow!” and some advice about the phrases I chose at times that come across less than professional when you are supposed to have a vision for your proposal. Thanks to all of you!

I left work an extra 30 minutes early to take my time at Tiajuana Flats and spread out my slides on the table and write my notes down again to give to the flipper. We ran through it one time before the main event, and I was feeling confident by then.

There were two USF webmasters and an administrative staff present as a panel of experts on our topic. We were going second of three, so we got to watch a meltdown in the first group as they approached the 10th question from the panel. That only got me more pumped, as the things they were getting hammered for were present and accounted for in ours. I think one person in the group (who unfortunately spoke up) didn’t get the idea that we are making a proposal to the university to take action on our product, not make a suggestion about what they can do themselves. Why would they need us otherwise?

Something happened during the presentation: The Zone. I hit it and I hit it big time. No nervousness, no shaking, no notes, no podium, just pure proposal. “Here is what you need to do, what it will do for you, what it looks like, how much it will cost, how much you should get back, and when you can have it if you fork over the money.” We only got 3 or 4 questions back, and none of them were serious in nature. Two were just for clarification and double-checking that I had thought about this or that. I said we had and why we went with what I pitched.

Awesome. We sat down to claps and smiles: from the first group. The third group had a complete and total meltdown when the panel hit them with the 20th question. The slide flipper finally chimed in and told them that they were business majors (bean counters, she said) and that they didn’t know what to do and that was “why we are relying on you, experts.” Nice move on the proposal. Really confident. Even the first group looked like they wanted to kill the proposal at that point to let them sit down.

The grade came in: 97.4% for the class. I get full reimbursement at work now!

Time for Technical Writing and The Modern Novel, two weeks from today.

Comments

  1. Hey congrats on the awesome grade. does your job pay for the course if you get a high enough grade? if so thats really cool. I think I am gonna apply to got to UTI to get ASE certified and maybe specialized for a certain company.

  2. Hey congrats on the awesome grade. does your job pay for the course if you get a high enough grade? if so thats really cool. I think I am gonna apply to got to UTI to get ASE certified and maybe specialized for a certain company.

  3. They sure do! Tuition, fees, exams, and books in full. Tuition pending grades, but with a 97.4%, that’s not an issue. 🙂 They do 100%, 80%, 50%, nothing.

    I rushed down to turn in the reimbursement receipts and memo a few mintues ago, and it checked out okay. I get the money in my Friday paycheck in time for paying the Fall tuition.

  4. They sure do! Tuition, fees, exams, and books in full. Tuition pending grades, but with a 97.4%, that’s not an issue. 🙂 They do 100%, 80%, 50%, nothing.

    I rushed down to turn in the reimbursement receipts and memo a few mintues ago, and it checked out okay. I get the money in my Friday paycheck in time for paying the Fall tuition.

  5. well thats really awesome. the military just pays for it so it will be nice to get a degree of some sort.

  6. well thats really awesome. the military just pays for it so it will be nice to get a degree of some sort.

  7. Jesse, you da man! I knew you could hit the zone. Happy to help.

  8. Jesse, you da man! I knew you could hit the zone. Happy to help.

  9. Congratulations, Son! Doesn’t it feel great when you’ve done a good job and people recognize your skill?!!
    Keep up the good work; we’re proud of you!

  10. Congratulations, Son! Doesn’t it feel great when you’ve done a good job and people recognize your skill?!!
    Keep up the good work; we’re proud of you!