Walking into speech class on the first day was in more ways than one unbearably nerve wrecking. Already late I quietly tried to slide into the nearest seat praying I hadn’t walked into a tyrant’s classroom. Eventually the class filled up and I began to feel slightly more at ease. Once the marvelously compelling professor began the days lecture, going over the course syllabus and class expectations, I knew that as long I stayed on top of the chapters and lectures I’d be fine. That was until he mentioned “group projects”. In that quick moment my heart sank and did triple backflips in my stomach. My hand-shaking nervousness was back. I looked around the room at unfamiliar faces and strange glances. A million and one questions stirred in my head: Who would I pair with? , Who was good at speech? , who was a hard worker? , who was a slacker? , who would I get along with? , who were these people?!
Right before I was about to abandon all hope of finding a group Professor Cornelius Brownlee told use to stand up and create two rows of tables with chairs on both side. Completely clueless to what was going on we followed his instructions. “This is Speed Networking” the professor announced following it with an explanation. Speed networking in a nutshell I learned is an accelerated form of sharing and receiving contacts, information while gaining a professional connection with multiple people in a short amount of time. Still very uneasy with the general idea of having to strike a conversation with everybody in the