The work

COM 495 · Spring 2026

Team documentary

Small group · Leadership & teamwork

The situation

A semester-long documentary produced by a student team, with every stage (topic, interviews, footage, edit, and final cut) decided collectively. The subject was Child Abuse Prevention Services Director Lisa Maddox. The real constraint wasn’t the camera work; it was six people with different standards, schedules, and opinions about the story trying to converge on one film before a fixed deadline.

My role

What you specifically owned e.g. interview scheduling, on-camera interviewing, script/narration, editing, coordinating the team.

What it taught me

I recognized what I’d read about groupthink happening in the room the pull toward whatever the loudest person had already said and learned that the useful move is not to argue harder but to make the quiet members’ positions explicit.

COM 123 · Fall 2025

Persuasive speech & elevator pitch

Rhetoric / public address · Public speaking

The situation

A public speaking course built around four graded deliveries: an object speech, an informative speech, a persuasive speech, and a 60-second elevator pitch. Each targeted a different rhetorical goal in front of the same live audience of classmates.

My role

Every stage was mine: topic selection, audience analysis, research, outlining, rehearsal, and delivery. My persuasive speech argued for more ESL Resources at schools.

What it taught me

The elevator pitch was harder than the ten-minute speech, and that surprised me. Sixty seconds gives you no room to build rapport before making a claim, so every word has to carry weight. On the persuasive speech, I learned I’d been writing to convince people who already agreed with me. Real audience analysis means designing for the person in the room who doesn’t.

COM 122 · Spring 2026

Pitch deck & dialogue project

Rhetoric / public address · Audience adaptation

The situation

A course centered on changing a message for its audience, assessed through two very different formats: a structured dialogue and a pitch deck.

My role

I built the deck end to end: argument structure, slide design, and delivery. I also participated in the dialogue component. The pitch covered MAP Mates, an app that makes travel with friends easier.

What I made

A delivered pitch deck and a recorded dialogue. Project