The Student Becomes the Teacher

As mentioned, today was my first lecture in Management II. It was an extremely eye opening experience for me. Public speaking is not my thing. I do not know what exactly about it stresses me out whether its being the center of attention or the fear of making a mistake. Colleen talked about a theory that someone may be more afraid of public speaking not because of the actual act, but because of a sense of pride. I had never heard this before and immediately this clicked for me. I find our class to be a pretty low threat environment as we are first off a small group and also have pretty much all of our classes together. I try to speak often in class and offer my ideas whenever someone is lecturing but for some reason being in front of the room just doesn't settle with me. No one in our class is malicious and I am not particularly worried about what others think of me, but even being up there brings out a physiological response in my body.
We sat down briefly after I went through most of my slides and I felt my pulse. I thought my carotid was going to explode. For some reason though, after this brief break I felt much more calm. Most of my slides were over but even then when I did have to speak and when we had our open discussion at the end I felt much more relaxed. I saw a friend who was not in the class and when I told her I had been nervous she said "what? but you're so outspoken?" I really have no answer for why I am the way I am but just getting this exposure has made me feel much better about my ability to speak in front of others. Just another step in improving my self-efficacy.