Return from skiing and skills course

I've just got back after my week away skiing and the 4 day generic skills course.

The generic skills course covered these topics:

1. Research
2. Planning
3. Literature searching
4. Research writing
5. Oral presentation skills
6. Presenting with visual aids
7. Poster presentations
8. Personal skills

Overall, I found the course really beneficial. I think best exercise was the opportunity to present a number of times, and getting feedback purely on how you presented it, instead of about technical aspects.

Another thing we were encouraged to do was write imaginative introductions and conclusions. Instead of introducing a presentation with "Hi, I'm someone and I'm going to be talking about something", you should try to capture your audience's interest. This is something I'd never have the confidence to try out for real without first practising it in a risk free environment.

My plan for today is to analyse the energy data from Alex's house over the period that I was away to validate my previous assertions. Next week I may get involved with some coding for BAE Systems.