The Big Day

Going into our ENGL210 presentation, I genuinely expected to feel a sense of payoff, like all our hard work was finally coming together. But when the moment arrived, it didn't feel the way I imagined. Although I believe our team delivered a strong effort overall, I personally struggled to perform at my best due to severe back pain that began only a few days before. During the presentation, I felt physically restricted and unable to fully focus or move comfortably, which made presenting my section, the one covering our proposed solutions, much more challenging than I anticipated.

Despite this, the rest of my team handled their parts well, even though one member faced some confidence issues while speaking to the audience. We also ran into major preparation challenges. The biggest setback was having to change our entire topic from microplastics to plastic waste management at the last minute. This forced us to rebuild our slides essentially from scratch and rework our poster only one week before the final presentation, and less than a day before our mock presentation. Ali, thankfully, was able to organize the presentation in time and Hazem worked hard on adjusting the poster to match the new problem statement. Looking back, I recognize that many of these difficulties were outside our control.

With the negatives acknowledged, it's important to highlight the achievements we made. Compared to the week before, we made significant improvements, both in our content and in how we addressed the feedback from the jury. By presentation day, our slides and poster were clearer, more organized, and better aligned with the expectations set for us. During the Q&A section, the judges seemed to genuinely understand our reasoning, especially when we explained why we selected the deposit return scheme over source separation. Although both solutions aim to reduce waste, source separation requires large scale public education, whereas a deposit return scheme provides a simpler, more direct incentive for participation.

Finally, although it's unlikely that our judges, mentors, or jury will ever come across this blog, I want to express my gratitude. Their time, feedback, and presence made the entire experience meaningful, even with the challenges we faced.