Good evening, my name is Carlyle Worrell. As you all know from my last speech I introduced the better half of my family, which is my newly turned one-year one son. He has a heck of a personality though as a critic especially, because every speech that I’ve written before this one, he managed to tear up.

Finally we come to week 12 and our last meeting. We collectively experienced many trials, tribulations, ups, downs and hurdles that we’ve obviously overcame. I can remember Adamantios saying how nervous he was during his first speech and since he was the very first one of our group to ever speak ironically that demonstrated more courage than anything. If there’s any questions as to why we’ve gone through all of this don’t let your answer just be, to get a grade or to learn how to overcome stage fright, let it be to ultimately become a more effective vehicle for personal and professional communication.

As I watch my video tapings from the last few sessions, and I laugh, I can also see myself excelling in many areas including dealing with nervousness and the way I demonstrated some traits that I may have criticized others on. It makes me feel good that I have come a long way in presenting speeches and in presenting myself to an audience that consists of my peers rather than a one year old and my living room furniture.

I know that in the future taking this course will benefit me in a number of ways to include, helping me to express myself in front of unfamiliar audiences and allowing me the ability to exercise certain techniques to effectively reach any number of people on a personal level and professionally. I feel a certain completeness on my journey in becoming a professional in the world of business, a world in which I choose to become dominate in someday. That being an ultimate goal of mine, I can trust that there will be many circumstances in where I will have to make presentations to and address people to convince them that I am sincere, prepared, enthusiastic, flexible, and experienced to get my point across. And these traits are the cornerstone of public speaking that demonstrate effective communication.

I’m starting to sound like Mrs. Peck, which is overall a good thing, because she is a master student of Public Speaking. And the more we become her (in a sense) the more we begin to realize the difficulties in developing our speech and understand how to overcome these difficulties and enjoy the rewards, as in speaking with conviction to audiences that we never imagined to be in front of as we are tonight.

In closing, I want to say that I’ve enjoyed all of the speeches from Janice’s milk persuasion to Sang’s dry cleaning demonstration. From Chris’s personal views on Cheating, to experiencing Joy’s Bundle of joy the first time we all met. These speeches are few among the many that were spoken between us all and have helped us to communicate with one another more effectively. Also our expectations of each other were heightened along with our potential to give a great speech. We have accepted one another as equals the moment we decided that we needed to be better speakers. This class is now a part of our lives and what ever you do never forget that you were and still belong to part of an elite group of people in the world that have the knowledge on how to effectively reach anyone, anywhere, on any subject that you choose. Lastly I want to quote the great Dr. Martin Luther King in his 1963 I Have A Dream speech,

“I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our Northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.”

What this means to me is that although we come from all walks of life, and have been suppressed by diversity, we should always remain optimistic that through the communication of speaking, we will overcome this suppression as we continue to learn and practice the art of public speaking.

Class, it’s been a pleasure and never forget that you’ll only get what you put into this. Without further adue,