Boa noite! This past week and a half, I’ve felt how limited communication makes even simple tasks challenging. Asking for the student discount at the movie theater, ordering parts for our project, and grabbing desert at the bakery is all more challenging for me in Portuguese. Dr. Matias of the graduate student program asked how we would feel making a presentation in Portuguese, and my face dropped.

If there’s one thing I learned from Rice, it’s how to build and give a presentation. This skill is stressed in almost every class starting with Freshman Writing and Intro to Design. Even with all of this exposure, making a presentation in Portuguese feels impossible. Dr. Matias quickly clarified that we wouldn’t have present in Portuguese, but he explained our response is how many graduate students feel when they have to present in English. Having learned about Rice’s communication programs during the Hackathon in May, he asked if we could implement something similar at Hospital de Amor.

This morning, Georgia and I presented on techniques to construct and deliver a presentation with confidence. The cover slide read “A Presentation on Presentations” and the file was named “Presentation Inception,” which, like us, the students found amusing. Our presentation included slides about practicing with peers, the importance of tables, and selecting tiles, to name a few. But it’s not always easy to practice what you preach.

Making a presentation in English when Portuguese is your first language is challenging. Introducing yourself in Portuguese when English is your first language is challenging. But shying away from the challenge won’t help. Doctors and students have gone way out of their comfort zone to communicate with us in English. Sometimes they preface the conversation with, “I’m not good at speaking English,” but that doesn’t stop them from trying (and usually they are good at speaking English). We are currently in a place with a surplus of opportunities to practice new skills, both communication and technical. So in the remaining weeks, I am challenging myself to branch more outside of my English comfort zone.