Kelsey: Contributing in Seminars and Discussions

When starting university, you most likely will be introduced to seminars. These are smaller classes than lectures where you will have a seminar leader guiding the session, initiating discussions and allowing students to ask questions. It can be a highly rewarding experience as you can gain a further understanding of the content you are learning in lectures as well as a chance to listen to other people’s knowledge. It can be intimidating sharing your thoughts in seminars especially when you don’t personally know the people you’re in the class with, but this is a judgement free zone where everyone is in the exact same boat as you.

Preparation is so important to ensure you get everything out of your seminar, it means you can already have some background knowledge which you can contribute to the class and form questions about the content. Seminars can be given in multiple formats, these could be question and answer sessions, a PowerPoint your seminar lead will run through or prework may be provided for you to complete. It is highly recommended to complete any prework given to get the most out of your seminar.