Yesterday, I presented our paper in a seminar, which went terribly. It wasted my colleagues’ time and failed to communicate the essence of our work. I felt frustrated about the wasted opportunity to present our work well and sorry for those who attended. I wanted to reflect on what went wrong and how I could improve.
So, what went wrong with my presentation? I see at least three main issues. First, even though I knew the paper well, I didn’t have enough time to refresh all the details before the seminar. Second, due to my partial involvement, I was not an expert on every aspect of the paper—only certain parts—yet I felt obligated to present all sections equally. Finally, and most importantly, I failed to think through what I wanted to communicate to the audience.
As a result, I started the seminar and quickly became frustrated with my own presentation. I felt unprepared, which led to a mental fog, increased anxiety, and a spiral of self-doubt. Under stress, I struggled to articulate the motivation behind our work, let alone explain the paper’s contributions clearly. Ultimately, I couldn’t even present the material I had prepared.
This post is my reflection on what went wrong and, more importantly, how I can improve for future presentations.
Lack of Thorough Preparation
Regarding the first point – thorough preparation. I know I struggle with unprepared speech. In general, I express myself much better in writing or when I am thoroughly prepared, which helps me manage the stress of social anxiety. That’s why I need enough time to organize my thoughts and ensure I am well-prepared before speaking publicly. When I teach, I every year again recompute exercises beforehand to ensure I can answer questions confidently. I make the concepts so clear in my mind that even under stress, I can discuss them effectively. This takes a lot of time.
Similarly, preparing for a seminar requires a significant investment of time. Although I had allocated enough time, I failed to use it effectively due to ad hoc requests—family demands, “unexpected” tasks, and difficulty saying no to last-minute requests from professors and students. None of these are excuses—I should have accounted for these variables. I failed to schedule my preparation well in advance, so the things to which I cannot say no (like my son demanding me in kindergarten for carnival) are not having such a big effect on preparation.
Presenting a collaborative work that I didn’t entirely own
The second issue was presenting work I didn’t do entirely myself. Even with thorough preparation, I won’t know every detail of a collaborative project. There will always be unexpected questions I can’t answer, and that’s okay. However, confidence and preparation are crucial to handling this without panic. The key is to present the parts I do understand effectively. The more multidisciplinary and collaborative research I engage in, the less I can be an expert in every aspect of the work. Retaining details of things I haven’t personally done requires additional effort.
My long-term memory isn’t great—I even forget parts of my own work after some time, let alone the work of others. With increasing responsibilities across multiple disciplines and roles—psychology, neuroscience, AI, robotics, managing people, purchases, teaching, leading student works on various topics, preparing projects, communicating with companies, accepting new PhD students, attracting girls to robotics, preparing study programs,…—the demands on my memory exceed my capacity. Again, refreshing my knowledge well before every single event and paper presentation is simply necessary. I know I need more preparation time than some others to make everything click. Public speaking confidence improves with practice, even for me, but thorough preparation is essential for me to manage it and not get overwhelmed by the stress.
Many professors deliver excellent talks on various topics without doing the whole work—often even better than those who fully understand every detail. How is that possible? First, they are likely smarter and have way better memory than I do. Second, they focus on delivering a clear message, emphasizing key points they understand well, and diving into details where they feel confident.
Failure to define a clear message
This ties closely to the last issue – the importance of crafting a clear message. Instead of just reviewing the paper and describing the experiments, I should have asked: What makes this seminar worth attending? What should attendees learn? A deep dive into a specific algorithm? Gain insights into method comparisons? A better grasp of experimental design? What are the best practices for collecting a strong evaluation dataset?
A good seminar leaves the audience with at least one meaningful insight. I should have identified a single key takeaway and explored it deeply instead of covering everything superficially. I must underline the main message and go in-depth on the parts I understand well. I have to accept that I will never understand everything, but I should still be able to explain at least something really well—and unfortunately, that was not the case in this seminar. Next time, I need to carefully evaluate what I know and don’t know in advance and focus deeply on the aspects where I can provide real value.
Learning to say no
I’m not a science rock star who can give an amazing talk with minimal preparation. I know this, and that knowledge increased my stress before the presentation even began—especially when I knew I hadn’t prepared as I would have wished to and I saw an unexpectedly large audience.
I also felt a strong sense of responsibility—especially in my new role as a group leader, where I set the standard for quality. If I announce a seminar, I need to deliver a talk that is at least worth attending. While perfection isn’t necessary, the seminar must provide value—just as teaching must be worthwhile for students. But how do you make good decisions in an endless flow of tasks and responsibilities where time estimation is crucial but really difficult? One key lesson: I must learn to say NO more often. If I say YES to something, I need to ensure I dedicate the necessary time and effort to do it well. Otherwise, I’ll feel overly stressed and fail to deliver value to others.
Final thoughts
Despite the poor presentation, I received valuable feedback on dataset improvements and feature selection. I’m grateful for this—thank you to everyone who contributed.
To those who attended and questioned why they came—I can’t promise my next seminar will be perfect, but I will strive to do better.