My most memorable course at UVic : Theatre 150

School’s over, and I finally have some time to be introspective about my undergraduate years.

After 46 courses and four work terms, I can without a doubt say that Theatre 150: Public Speaking was one of the best courses I took during my degree. People often have this misconception that you need to be in Business or Fine Arts if you want to take this course. I was in Engineering, and couldn’t have taken a better complementary elective than THEA 150.

It was a three-hour long lecture once a week. You get to interact with people from all disciplines. My first week in the class, we were all asked to present a jibberish commercial. It was probably one of the hardest and at the same time one of the most fun things I did in the course.

The major component of the course was the three big speeches: Informative Speech, Persuasive Speech, and a Visual-Aid Speech.

The most challenging portion for me was to figure out the topic and thesis statement for my speech. Once you have that, you are golden. My strategy was to be as different and unique I could get with the choice of my topics. All three of my subjects were entirely different from one another.

For my first speech, I spoke about the TV show F.R.I.E.N.D.S., and how it brought a significant cultural impact and was responsible for changing the landscape of American sitcoms.  My lifelong dream to sing “Smelly Cat” in front of a big crowd of people, just like Phoebe, was finally fulfilled. I concluded the speech with my rendition of FRIENDS’ famous theme song, “I’ll be there for you.”

So no one told you life was gonna be this way,
Your degree is a joke; you are broke, and your GPA is D.O.A,
It’s like you are always stuck in first year,
When it hasn’t been your day, your week, your semester or even your year,
But remember, FRIENDS will always be there for you.

My second speech was me trying to persuade the audience on the relevance of beauty pageants and how they are not frivolous. It was fun and at the same time an important topic choice for me. I drew my persuasion from my own interaction with contestants competing at Miss Universe 2015 (read my blog post about it). Their stories were inspiring, and their reasons for competing in the pageant were certainly eye opening.

My third speech topic was honestly a bold choice for me. I talked about why Britain owes Reparation to India. I was a little apprehensive going down this path, as I didn’t want to offend anybody or dig up the past, but it was important for me to educate the audience a little more on world history.

This course was not just about standing up to the stage and speaking. It was also about learning about so many various other things from all the other speeches. It definitely gave me more than I thought I would take away when I first enrolled myself into this course.

I have compiled a short video of my speeches so you can get a feel of what it is like to be in this class. If you do end up taking this class during your time at UVic, I hope you too have a very good time in shedding your inhibitions of public speaking.