The final year student of the notable Federal school of surveying, Oyo, defends her project today, the 29th of March, 2017. The exercise began yesterday with Instrument test, as the student were practically assessed on skill and knowledge of the surveying equipment. Following the test of Instrument which involves temporary adjustments (centering, levelling, focusing), the students were graded and cleared to face the panel for final presentation and defense.
By way of encouraging our finalist in making awesome presentations, here are few useful tips to guide you through your defence.
Just imagine a project defence room where you are presenting your PROJECT TOPIC in such a fabulous way, and your panel members just can’t stop nodding, gazing at you with their mouths wide open and clapping non-stop for you…It is just an imagination, so wake up! Put more work to it by reading this article, apply it and pray your panel members do not turn your project defence to project attack!
Project defence has come to stay, and the only way to graduate in Nigerian Higher Institutions is to at least defend what you have written (or copied and paste) in a convincing manner. Gone are the days when you could just copy and paste an article from the internet and dump for your school. Our Nigerian school system is changing from dumping grounds to speech oriented institutions, which means that you must be good at presentations in order to scale through. At times students confuse themselves with content of their work. The truth is that it is better to be more confident with a poor content, than to be un-able to defend an excellent research work.
In this article, I am going to give out some useful tips and tricks on how you can have an awesome project defence and presentation. In order to make reading this article more pleasurable, I am going to give tips on how what to do before the defence day, on the defence day, and inside the defence room. So enjoy!
Tips to apply before your defence day
First before your project defence, you must ensure you have a romantic relationship with your project topic and the whole content. When I say ‘romantic relationship’, I mean your project topic or research thesis must be of great interest to you. If your topic is too difficult or it was imposed on you by your project supervisor, you better start loving the topic or better still; look for a way to get it changed for you. You would be amazed how this simple trick will go a long way in helping you.
Second, do adequate research on your topic. Before defending or presenting your project, you should source for similar materials on your topic. Focus on how the problem was identified and addressed. Do not dream of having an awesome presentation if you do not know common terminologies associated with your topic. Identify your keywords, variables, background of the study, history of the study and all the variables before your defence date
Third, know your motivation for the study or research. Most final year students in Nigeria defending their projects do not perform well because, they fail to identify their motives for the study. The motivation for your study is probably the first answer to numerous questions you may be asked in the defence room. Before a research is undertaken, there is usually a problem to solve. The desire to solve that problem becomes your motivation for the study. Please do not use money, or the need to graduate as motivations for your study. Motivation for the study is best applied in questions like ‘why undertake this study’? ‘Tell us about your work’?
Fourth, know your strength as well as your weaknesses. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses will help you prepare a backup plan in case the direction of the defence changed in an unfavourable way.
Fifth, discuss with professionals in your research field and do group discussions with friends and group members. Make your friends your panel members, and defend in front of them. Tell them to criticize and ask numerous questions. With this little training you will be tuning your mind set for what a defence room will look like. You can also seek professional help from your lecturers.
On the day of defence
On the day of defence, a lot of student’s panic and some may even forget their project topics. Just apply the following tricks and tips and you will be just fine!
First, rehearse with friends again. Look for people to discuss your project with all over again. This will help you remember your key points.
Second, dress officially and look modest and smart. Avoid the use of unnecessary accessories such as lapel pin etc. As a lady, remember that your dressing is incomplete without your hand bag.
Third, develop good self-esteem and confidence. Before you enter the defence room, make use of some good self-esteem! Think well about yourself, and have in mind that these professors and senior lecturers you are going to face are human beings that do not know everything. So be in control. See yourself as someone going to lecture a bunch of people that do not know much. Remember 90% of your fears cannot be seen at first, unless you start showing it.
In the defence room
· Stay closer to the defence hall for your roll call and if possible knock first before you enter.
· Greet the panel members with lots of smile
· Don’t sit yet until you are told to do so and maintain a good sitting posture.
· Wait for your first question, possibly “a brief introduction of yourself”
· Answer with great confidence. While answering your questions look straight into the eyes of your panel members, and never be rude. All is well!
Wishing you all success on your project defence, kindly drop a message to express your goodwill towards them.
..said a student. As the saying goes, "If you have the brain and can face the rigour, then join the wagon and be a surveyor" ...You didn't just join the wagon but you were able to withstand the rigour and has conquered this feat in the profession. For your hard work, you deserve it, you have got it! I join the host of others to congratulate all the final year students (NDII and HNDII) of the famous Federal School of Surveying, Oyo on the success of her project defence, hence, qualifying you for the award of the National Diploma Certificate and Higher National Diploma respectively to the graduating students.It really calls for celebration, first they scared you...then they laughed and fight against you... then you slog it out and win! I knew you could do it. Congratulations for your brilliant victory!
You could feel the burden lifted off their shoulders after the delay posed by the management. Well done guys! You all are destined to make it big, you just didn't
know it.
