Dr. Sameh Abdallah - CLC Seminar

Dr. Sameh Abdallah gave a seminar for the College of Language and Communications at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology, and Maritime Transport in Miami. As the managing editor of the Al Ahram Newspaper – Cairo Branch – the main message of his seminar was to give ten journalist tips to the CLC students.

Throughout the seminar, Dr. Sameh Abdallah was able to successfully deliver his main message. As a successful journalist, his advice really did leave an impact, however his delivery was successful in grabbing the audience’s attention at the start of his talk, throughout, and at the end. I believe a reason for his success in grabbing attention was his volume, and the interaction with the audience. He did resort to joking though the seminar, which was good for his target audience – college students. However a majority of the audience was made up of term 1 students, and I believe that is why he resorted to taking a more friendly approach. As term 1 students, a majority of them still have yet to think of their future. I would have preferred for him to be a bit more serious regarding the explanation of some specific points. There were times where I felt like I just wanted him to get to the point of his story then continue his joking around with the audience. I personally was impacted greatly by his talk. It was nice to see a man of his position with his personality. I have been told various times that I am “too weird” and need to change to be able to “deal with the country” so it was comforting to see a successful, grown man acting care free while still being on top of his work. That is what I aspire to be one day, successful while still being true to myself.

The way that he started his speech was different than the way that previous speakers have at our University. Instead of staying behind the podium, seated, he stood up and stood in front of the podium. He was loud and friendly with the way he started, making him stand out from the previous people who have come to talk to us about their professions. His outro was completely different from his intro. While his intro was friendly and inviting, his outro was more serious which I believe was better than his intro because it left the sense of how important the field of journalism is. I do believe that the reason for the effectiveness of his outro was due to how friendly and carefree his intro was.

While he spoke, the he used a mix of Arabic and English. His language in both languages were formal enough to not be slang and also simple enough to be understood at a friendly level of normal conversation.  He did use a few expressions and phrases regarding his tips for journalism. The use of expressions made it easy for the tips to be remembered; furthermore, the expressions also made journalism seem like a fun and interesting field that would be nice to join.

I loved his body language at the beginning of his speech because he was standing and involved in what he was saying. The passion was extremely noticeable, and it made the entire topic seem much more interesting. However his excessive movements were somewhat distracting. I found myself paying more attention to what he was doing and less attention to what he was saying. His facial expressions were extremely energetic, but at points when he was raising his voice his eyes would be open very widely and the entire issue flipped from being friendly to somewhat intense. His volume was very loud, which was good regarding the size of the room and the amount of people. I was sitting in the third row, and at points I felt like he was yelling. His volume would rise unexpectedly and it would startle me at some points, which would distort my thoughts. I had a hard time following what he was saying when he was yelling due to the excessive loudness. Other than that, it was fine, especially considering the fact that his audience was mainly composed of first year college students. I personally am not used to people speaking that loudly in general, but I have noticed hat people in Egypt are used to speaking at high volumes, so maybe it was perfect for the audience before him. His intonation was very precise in both Arabic and English.

As for a visual aid, he had a presentation made up of 10 slides. Each slide only had the tip that he was explaining. The tip was written in a creative way that made the presentation itself eye catching.

Dr. Sameh Abdallah did not depend on his visual aid to give his talk. He read the tip on the slide, drawing attention to the visual aid, and then he explained it in more detail without referring to any notes. He only referred back to the visual aid when he wanted to emphasize the tip again throughout his explanation.

Not a lot of people asked questions; however, he did answer every question asked. I believe that part of the reason why not a lot of questions were asked is because of the fact that some of the students were scared from how he interacted with them. He was rather forceful and insensitive while dealing with shy students.