Nadine Woods interviews our scholar, Regina Foard, who won one of the outstanding presentation awards at Middlesex University.
Regina, first of all, congratulations on winning the outstanding presentation award at the Middlesex Summer Research Symposium!! Tell me how you found out about the symposium, please.
In early Spring, I received emails from both OCMS and Middlesex University for a “Call for Abstracts” for the Middlesex Summer Research Symposium to be held in June of this year. My first reaction was to dismiss the request primarily because I was not eager for an opportunity to present my research in such an academic public forum, but after some consideration, I decided that I would benefit from the experience regardless of whether my Abstract was chosen or not.Did you get any help in putting your abstract together?
Middlesex offered a workshop in designing an Abstract, which proved to be very helpful. One of the conditions for submitting the Abstract was the requirement for your supervisors’ approval of the Abstract prior to submission. With some minor changes, my Abstract was completed and approved by my supervisors. Although I chose the PPT forum for my presentation, I attended both poster and the PPT method workshops offered by Middlesex.I guess being chosen to present at the symposium was an achievement in itself. Getting the abstract ready certainly sounds like a lot of work.
That is true. To my surprise, my Abstract was selected for the symposium. Middlesex facilitated a pre-symposium rehearsal for participants, and they also included a networking peer-to-peer exchange, and both of these events helped to prepare me for the day of presentation.Tell me what happened on the day of the symposium, please.
On the day of the symposium, I joined in others’ presentations. I was somewhat overwhelmed by the expertise of the PPTs being used and felt mine was woefully inadequate. However, through a great deal of prayer and also having others praying over me, I presented my research which was followed by a short question-and-answer period. Later that day, I was to learn that my research presentation was recognized as an outstanding presentation. God does lavish his unmerited favor upon us. There are many learning points from this experience but one of the most valuable was how much I developed as a researcher through the entire process.