Public speaking

A recent letter to the editor (regarding the op-ed piece in the New York Times where a variety of professors gave advice to students and posted recently), makes the point that amid all this good advice, no one mentioned the importance of public speaking. "One piece of advice that I didn't see," wrote this emeritus professor biology, "was that students should take a course and gain as much experience as possible in public speaking. No matter what career students pursue, they will have to stand up and speak to a group of people sometime, and they are usually not well prepared to do so." Of course, this is something we know but it's nice to see that people in other field also recognize the importance of public speaking.