I work in an office full of women & no one can get along. There’s so much drama that now our office has to attend a mandatory workshop in a few weeks. The boss doesn’t micromanage, but all of my coworkers micromanage each other & care too much about what everyone else is doing. I doubt the workshop will even address the actual issues. I stay out of it & mind my business. I don’t care what these people do, that’s my bosses job to care not mine.
Anyway - I’ve got to do to this workshop & we each have to “take accountability for our role”. Curious if y’all have some suggestions for cookie cutter answers that will keep me from sharing my true feelings.
If any of you have ever had to attend one of these workshops & has any insight to provide that would be great too! Thanks!

Good morning everyone,
I was recently laid off and I have been openly looking for work on LinkedIn. I had a connect reach out regarding a job at her husbands work. He then reached out to me and there is a lot of interest on both ends. However, there is no Job Title/Salary listed - they are asking me what I would want it to be. I have 7 years of experience in digital marketing, primarily focused on Marketing Automation but also have done PPC, social media, graphic design, etc. Here are the details:

• Personal Injury Law Firm based out of Philadelphia
  • I am located in the suburbs of Chicago, fully remote position
• Reporting to Director of Marketing
• Responsiblities sent to me were in reference to a specific campaign for Pressure Cooker accidents. The responsibilities include:
  • Targeted Content Marketing: Develop blogs, infographics, and FAQs focused on pressure cooker safety and legal recourse available to victims. Create downloadable content such as safety guides or what-to-do checklists in exchange for contact information.
  • PPC Campaigns: Use Google Ads and Meta Platforms to run targeted ads using specific keywords related to exploding pressure cookers. Implement geo-targeting to focus on areas where these incidents are more common or where product sales are high.
  • Social Media Marketing: Utilize platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to share stories of previous clients, safety tips, and legal advice. Run lead generation ads that direct users to a landing page where they can sign up for free consultations.
  • Video Marketing: Produce video testimonials of past clients and explainer videos on what legal steps to take after an injury. Distribute these videos on YouTube, TikTok, and as part of social media ad campaigns.
  • SEO and Local Search: Optimize your website content for SEO to rank higher for related search terms. Ensure your Google My Business listing is updated and optimized for local searches.
  • Email and SMS Campaigns: Set up automated nurturing campaigns to educate and engage leads captured through different channels. Use SMS to send quick updates and reminders about safety news or legal consultations.
  • Networking and Partnerships: Attend and sponsor industry events and seminars relevant to product liability and consumer safety. Join professional groups and associations where you can contribute content and expertise.
  • LinkedIn Marketing: Use LinkedIn for targeted ads and content marketing focused on demonstrating expertise and successful case studies. Engage with potential referral partners by joining discussions and sharing insightful content.
  • Referral Program: Create a formal referral program that offers incentives for other professionals to refer clients to your firm. Clearly communicate the benefits and terms of the referral program through dedicated landing pages and during networking events.
  • Co-Branded Webinars and Workshops: Host webinars and workshops in partnership with medical professionals or safety organizations. Focus topics on consumer safety, legal rights, and case studies related to product liability.
  • Direct Outreach: Use a targeted email campaign to reach out to potential referral sources with information about your expertise and past successes. Follow up with phone calls or personal meetings to discuss potential partnerships.
  • Content Marketing: Produce white papers, case studies, and articles that showcase your expertise and success in cases related to exploding pressure cookers. Distribute this content to potential referral sources and make it available on your website.

As you can see, it is essentially running the marketing department for the firm by myself. The Director is very opening to assisting if/when needed for anything I am uncomfortable with or isn't a strong suit.
With all of this information, what would my title even be, and what would be a fair salary for someone in the Chicago suburbs? The amount of responsibilities makes it feel like an Associate Director position, but traditionally Associate Director's aren't doing all the heavy lifting.
Happy to answer any additional questions - I want to make sure I am taken care of and not lowballing myself. Thank you

Good morning everyone,
I was recently laid off and I have been openly looking for work on LinkedIn. I had a connect reach out regarding a job at her husbands work. He then reached out to me and there is a lot of interest on both ends. However, there is no Job Title/Salary listed - they are asking me what I would want it to be. I have 7 years of experience in digital marketing, primarily focused on Marketing Automation but also have done PPC, social media, graphic design, etc. Here are the details:

• Personal Injury Law Firm based out of Philadelphia
  • I am located in the suburbs of Chicago, fully remote position
• Reporting to Director of Marketing
• Responsiblities sent to me were in reference to a specific campaign for Pressure Cooker accidents. The responsibilities include:
  • Targeted Content Marketing: Develop blogs, infographics, and FAQs focused on pressure cooker safety and legal recourse available to victims. Create downloadable content such as safety guides or what-to-do checklists in exchange for contact information.
  • PPC Campaigns: Use Google Ads and Meta Platforms to run targeted ads using specific keywords related to exploding pressure cookers. Implement geo-targeting to focus on areas where these incidents are more common or where product sales are high.
  • Social Media Marketing: Utilize platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to share stories of previous clients, safety tips, and legal advice. Run lead generation ads that direct users to a landing page where they can sign up for free consultations.
  • Video Marketing: Produce video testimonials of past clients and explainer videos on what legal steps to take after an injury. Distribute these videos on YouTube, TikTok, and as part of social media ad campaigns.
  • SEO and Local Search: Optimize your website content for SEO to rank higher for related search terms. Ensure your Google My Business listing is updated and optimized for local searches.
  • Email and SMS Campaigns: Set up automated nurturing campaigns to educate and engage leads captured through different channels. Use SMS to send quick updates and reminders about safety news or legal consultations.
  • Networking and Partnerships: Attend and sponsor industry events and seminars relevant to product liability and consumer safety. Join professional groups and associations where you can contribute content and expertise.
  • LinkedIn Marketing: Use LinkedIn for targeted ads and content marketing focused on demonstrating expertise and successful case studies. Engage with potential referral partners by joining discussions and sharing insightful content.
  • Referral Program: Create a formal referral program that offers incentives for other professionals to refer clients to your firm. Clearly communicate the benefits and terms of the referral program through dedicated landing pages and during networking events.
  • Co-Branded Webinars and Workshops: Host webinars and workshops in partnership with medical professionals or safety organizations. Focus topics on consumer safety, legal rights, and case studies related to product liability.
  • Direct Outreach: Use a targeted email campaign to reach out to potential referral sources with information about your expertise and past successes. Follow up with phone calls or personal meetings to discuss potential partnerships.
  • Content Marketing: Produce white papers, case studies, and articles that showcase your expertise and success in cases related to exploding pressure cookers. Distribute this content to potential referral sources and make it available on your website.

As you can see, it is essentially running the marketing department for the firm by myself. The Director is very opening to assisting if/when needed for anything I am uncomfortable with or isn't a strong suit.
With all of this information, what would my title even be, and what would be a fair salary for someone in the Chicago suburbs? The amount of responsibilities makes it feel like an Associate Director position, but traditionally Associate Director's aren't doing all the heavy lifting.
Happy to answer any additional questions - I want to make sure I am taken care of and not lowballing myself. Thank you

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Hi Reddit! I am a computer scientist from the University of Maryland here to answer your questions about artificial intelligence.
Furong Huang is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Maryland. She specializes in trustworthy machine learning, AI for sequential decision-making, and generative AI and focuses on applying foundational principles to solve practical challenges in contemporary computing.
Dr. Huang develops efficient, robust, scalable, sustainable, ethical and responsible machine learning algorithms that operate effectively in real-world settings. She has also made significant strides in sequential decision-making, aiming to develop algorithms that not only optimize performance but also adhere to ethical and safety standards. She is recognized for her contributions with awards including best paper awards, the MIT Technology Review Innovators Under 35 Asia Pacific, the MLconf Industry Impact Research Award, the NSF CRII Award, the Microsoft Accelerate Foundation Models Research award, the Adobe Faculty Research Award, three JP Morgan Faculty Research Awards and Finalist of AI in Research - AI researcher of the year for Women in AI Awards North America.
Souradip Chakraborty is a third-year computer science Ph.D. student at the University of Maryland advised by Dr. Furong Huang. He works on the foundations of trustworthy reinforcement learning with a focus on developing safe, reliable, deployable and provable RL methods for real-world applications. He has co-authored top-tier publications and U.S. patents in artificial intelligence and machine learning. Recently he received an Outstanding Paper Award (TSRML workshop at Neurips 2022) and Outstanding Reviewer Awards at Neurips 2022, Neurips 2023 and AISTATS 2023.
Mucong Ding is a fifth-year Ph.D. student in computer science at the University of Maryland, advised by Dr. Furong Huang. His work broadly encompasses data efficiency, learning efficiency, graph and geometric machine learning and generative modeling. His recent research focuses on designing a more unified and efficient framework for AI alignment and improving their generalizability to solve human-level challenging problems. He has published in top-tier conferences, and some of his work has been recognized for oral presentations and spotlight papers.
We'll be on from 2 to 4 p.m. ET (18-20 UT) - ask us anything!
Other links:

• Website: https://furong-huang.com/
• Google Scholar page: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=13yyuCcAAAAJ&hl=en
• Q&A on whether AI-generated content is detectable: https://cmns.umd.edu/news-events/news/ai-generated-content-actually-detectable

Username: umd-science

Hey folks, I have a bit of a conundrum here that’s probably mostly down to my own inexperience with the legal side of this stuff; I’ll be very happy if there’s an obvious straightforward answer I just missed here!
Essentially I’m trying to turn two parallel side gigs I have going into actual working businesses. One is repairing and making musical instruments, and the other is leathercrafting. As this all comes under the umbrella of handcrafts and I’m operating everything out of the same workshop, my understanding is that I could do all this as the same single sole trader even if I sold the different items through different websites. Obviously if the answer to this is ‘no’, my question stops here and I just do all my registration and accounts twice, but since I’m not relishing the prospect of doing it once I hope that’s not the case!
The bigger issue I have here is business names. I have two names and sets of branding picked out for each arm of this, and as far as I can see I can use these no problem as long as the wider business name is also included and accessible. My problem here is that you might describe some of my leathercrafting work as a little……risqué. I don’t actually care about customers or visitors to the leathercrafting side of things tracing it back to me, I’m more concerned with the business name being a very straightforward google-able link between the two websites. I’m slightly concerned about losing business on the guitar end of things (you’d be surprised how much of the international custom instrument market is from guys in American megachurch bands), but frankly slightly more concerned about my mother making the connection and having an extremely awkward family Christmas dinner down the line!
So short version; is there a practical way of operating two businesses as a single sole trader where it’s not very easy for customers visiting a website to find one from the other?

In this post I want to break down how I think about and how I build custom B2B lead gen eco-systems that are designed to engage a cold prospect, educate and help them to then turn into $XX,XXX deals.
I'll share the metrics and best practices from my own experiences from working with around 20 b2b companies with varying deal sizes, starting from $5k marketing packages, to $90k/yr fintech solutions and $200k software dev & IT deals. If you don't agree with my approach, that's fine, there's multiple ways to skin a cat.
Fundamentals are mostly the same and we can split it in 3 main parts.

1. Traffic acquisition
2. Nurture & education mechanism
3. Conversion mechanism.

Where most businesses go wrong is that they try to sell their expensive service to a cold prospect.
That might look like cold emailing and cold "linkedining" (new term) prospects an offer or asking if they're interested in this and that, on the spot.
This is not a good approach for one simple reason - no one want's to be sold to. Not to say that this direct approach doesn't work, for some it works good enough to stay afloat, but it's not something you can use to drive real, inbound interest in your services. Selling to prospects that you get on a sales call from 1 email or DM is extremely hard since you have to do the heavy lifting to educate them on the call and then you also have to sell them.
My goal is to turn this dynamic on it's head. Yes, we want to reach out to cold prospects. Yes, we want to run ads. But not to sell immediately. Rather, we're inviting and getting those prospects into our ecosystem where if they go through your educational materials like reports, case studies, how-to's AND have a real pain, they will come to you to solve it.
Let's break it down.
Traffic acquisition.
There's 2 channels I use to acquire traffic. Sometimes I use both, sometimes one or the other. For the most part that depends on the TAM and what we're selling.
1 - Paid ads (LI and META) are great if you need volume and your deal size varies between $5k - $20k. If you get it right, it's a system that scales easily so you can control demand and growth fairly easily too. It's also very quick and easy to troubleshoot since you can change a variable and see the result in next 3 days.
The ultimate goal of paid ads is to get as many people in your funnel as possible. The only logical way to do it is using lead magnets. Industry specific reports with unique insights that only your ICP would care about, easy-to-code tools that only your ICP would find useful (calculators work great for me), guides and courses made to solve a very specific problem, you get the picture.
We're giving away this free value in exchange for their email address. I can already hear people yelling "But giving away stuff for free only attracts freebie seekers" That's because you don't have a mechanism in place to convert that opt-in into a deal. (I'll go into in the next sections)
To make a great lead magnet I follow this mantra:

1. Has to be industry and role specific
2. Has to solve 1 painful problem for the lead
3. No surface-level, bait-and-switch teasing BS. (using lead magnet as a sales page is a big no-no)

Lead magnet is your chance to build rapport, show your competence and build good will by actually helping your prospects before you ever speak with them. USE IT WISELY. I see many businesses only tease the solution. My advice - give away all your secrets. If you're vague, your leads will think that your approach is basic and you won't capture the interest.
For us, around 20% of lead magnet leads opt-in into the next step of the funnel where we ask much more details. Company name, website, name, phone, etc, etc.
Do this step right and you'll get leads from your ICP opting into your funnel in droves, for cheap.
One little hack I do whenever I launch lead magnet campaigns is create 5-10 lead magnet ideas, create the ads and the landing pages, but don't create the lead magnet itself. Then run ads to those 5-10 lead magnets and see what your cost per lead is AND see what quality leads you attract. My baseline KPI's are sub $15 CPL on the initial launch and 3 out of 10 leads be real, actual companies that fit the ICP.
If you hit that initially, you can reiterate on the ads and the LP and get your CPL way lower.
2 - Cold outreach (LI and email) is great if you're after high ticket or enterprise level deals.
Cold outreach is great for huge target markets and/or very high value accounts. You won't reach Elon Mush through ads, but you could through cold outreach.
Instead of blanket-spamming 10k leads that might or might not need our service we do this.

1. Score companies based on fit (we use AI for this on scale by giving it bad fit examples, medium fit examples and great fit examples while also describing why each is bad, medium or great. Then we ask to output a score from 1-10)
2. For companies that score 7 or higher, look at buying signals. Recent hires, open positions, growth or decline, recent funding, featured in news (why featured in news?) and, of course, technographics.
3. Companies that display positive signals AND are a fit based on scoring, we send a personalized message automatically.

90% of this happens automatically at this point, but don't get confused - it's not AI copy that gets sent out. We have a general template and framework that we base our messages upon and AI fills in the blanks. All that is based on what information we find on the companies and what state they're currently in.
"Hey Adam, saw that Houberz is looking for an engineer with deep understanding of X. I know first hand how hard it is to fill such roles.
I have a case study on how we did Y using X technology, thought you might be interested in giving it a quick read before you pull someone onboard."
This is the general gist of it. Combine it with reaching out to leads that are likely in-market and you'll average 15% reply rates. Blast 10k emails to random list and you'll get 0.5% - 1% reply rates.
That is how we get qualified traffic on the front end.
This is how we convert it into deals.
1.1 - Paid
Once you have people claiming your lead magnet, the magic happens on the thank you page. I've seen many people just have a generic thank you page that does not prompt the next action.
Wasted digital real estate.
Instead of leaving it blank, we either have a call booking page where we pitch a non-sales call that would help fix the lead a specific problem or a signup page for a live workshop.
2nd has higher opt-in rate, but has longer time-to-deal, 1st gives you 1-1 time with high value prospects, but is more expensive..
Ideally, run both. Best of both worlds.
On top of that, when someone opts in and claims your lead magnets, you can then email them on a regular basis as part of your newsletter which gives you another channel to nurture leads and throw offers their way.
2.1 - Cold outreach
As soon as you receive a positive response to your lead magnet offer, you send it over, find that person on LI and connect (so you have another channel and they see that you're a real human) then ask if they're struggling with a specific problem that your service can fix.
If they do, great, share more case studies, share how they could solve the problem themselves and then soft-pitch a meeting in which you propose to "continue the conversation"
For cold, each convo will be different so you will have to come up with helpful and relevant email responses on the fly.
Remember speed-to-lead. The faster you answer, the higher the chance of you pushing the lead to the next step of your funnel.
So do you need both of these acquisition channels? Do you also need to post on Linkedin and dance on Tiktok?
Depends on your business. Generally, the more eyes you have on you, the more deals you'll close. These two channels are foundation for myself and any business I consult, but to supplement that and build credibility, we're also heavily investing in LI organic.
Why? People who watch your ads and engage with your emails will check out your LI eventually. If it's barren, you won't leave an impression. If it's packed with valuable, funny, insightful and humanizing posts, not only your leads will connect with you, but they'll feel compelled to engage.
So it's not one system or another - it's all of them working in cohesion.
Thanks for coming to my ted talk.

Isn't that usually how life goes? When you get what you want, you realize you don't want it.
I realized it wasn't about money. No genuine insight derived from theorizing about abstracts like sexual marketplace value. I started by asking the question, "If charisma and wisdom are 99% of the population's dump stats, then what are they actually doing to attract partners?"
And the answer, from my perspective, seems to be: they're not doing shit. They're the wrong person in the right place at the right time. And the more social these people are, the more opportune moments occur.
Then I realized that being social doesn't just mean going to parties and drinking and clubbing and such. It can be a book club or a workshop or a hiking group or whatever. It can mean pursuing your passions in a context where you meet others who pursue the same passion. And if you're competent at that passion, there's a good chance someone in that sphere is going to find you much more appealing than in contexts where you're not an enthusiastic participant.
If this doesn't sound actionable to you, due to social anxiety, then I would say to seek out the lowest forms of socializing and work your way up. Like small talk. I'm sure many of us hate it, but maybe that has a lot to do with our expectations. When someone small talks with you, they're looking to see if you're safe to talk to on bigger subjects. Which is an invitation to talk in general. I promise you they won't downvote you for a grammatical error and pedantically parse through every word you say like people do on the internet. There is no rule that says you have to meet them on small subjects. Bring up a quick witted observation about the immediate environment. Make a joke about how you're glad you didn't get stuck in a "good, how are you" loop (again). Use your strength of creativity to your advantage
Anyway, the point I'm making is we can be social creatures in a way that doesn't take chunks out of our flesh. And when you realize the art of attraction is not all that mysterious and obscure, and fomo no longer takes up 50% of your daily emotional bandwidth, you'll realize that you've found things of value other than sex and romantic relationships: friendship, new creative outlets, new intellectual outlets, and possibly cure your chronic vitamin D deficiency

This post is part of a series of reviews. To see them all, click here.

Season Information

• Airdates: 30th August 1980 - 21st March 1981
• Doctor: 4th (Tom Baker)
• Companions: K-9 (V/A: John Leeson, S18E01-20), Romana II (Lalla Ward, S18E01-20), Adric (Matthew Waterhouse, S18E09-28), Nyssa (Sarah Sutton, S18E21-28), Tegan (Janet Fielding, S18E25-28)
• Other Notable Characters: The Decayed Master (Geoffrey Beevers, S18E21-24), The Tremas Master (Anthony Ainley, S18E24-28)
• Producer: John Nathan-Turner
• Script Editors: Christopher H. Bidmead

Review

In retrospect I really shouldn't have called Season 15 "The Transitional Season". Because, well, Season 18 is obviously the Doctor Who season most clearly transitioning between eras. So much so that by the end of the season the only thing left of the 4th Doctor era is the 4th Doctor himself. Through this season, the 4th Doctor, Romana and K-9 become the 5th Doctor, Adric, Nyssa and Tegan. And it leads to kind of an odd feeling.
It's also notable that there's a serious tonal change that happens this season. While Graham Williams never quite got to make the comedy era of Doctor Who that he wanted to, he did give it a more relaxed and free-flowing atmosphere. Under new Producer John Nathan-Turner, as well as new Script Editor Christopher H. Bidmead, the story veers right back into being a more serious show. And for the first time, there was real effort being put into grounding a lot of the stories in real science. And while the actual science involved isn't really accurate, I do think it has a positive impact on the season as a whole. The science on Doctor Who is always made up, but at least this way it feels like we're pointing in the vague direction of something real.
It's certainly a refreshing change of pace from the rest of the 4th Doctor era. The 4th Doctor era, at least from Season 13 onwards had a tendency to feel very gimmicky. During the Hinchcliffe era it was taking popular horror stories like Frankenstein or The Mummy and adapting them for Doctor Who. During the Williams era, that shifted more towards genre parodies, with some journeys in to Greek mythology. Season 18 feels kind of refreshing in large part because…there's not really any obvious influences. Sure we're pulling from real science, both in individual episodes and in a more general sense with the broad theme of entropy, but that feels a lot less invasive than pulling from more famous media.
Which leads us nicely to the entropy thing. Season 18, at least in theory, has an overarching theme of "entropy". Or more accurately it has an overarching theme of "decay" that sometimes takes on the form of entropy. Because look, there's nothing especially entropic about the vampires in State of Decay or the way the Argolins are dying out in The Leisure Hive, but it still falls into the larger umbrella of decay. Which gives this season a fairly melancholic tone to it on the whole. Throughout the entire season, things seem to be falling apart, especially once we get to E-Space. Warriors' Gate is full of all of this imagery of past riches fading into nothing, Keeper of Traken is literally about an entirely way of life nearly falling apart, and Logopolis is where we, really and truly, get the entropy theme, for real this time. But also…
Logopolis, in which the Doctor dies, briefly turns into a man with white cracked skin only to sit up looking about a decade younger, is probably the best indication of the other half of our decay theme. Because Doctor Who is a show where things generally work out for the best, this is a season that is as much about rebirth as it is about decay. The Argolins from Leisure Hive are given a chance at new life for their civilization. The peoples with meet in the E-Space Trilogy all ultimately get delivered from their decaying societies and given a chance to build back up to something new. In Meglos…I guess at the end there the people of Tigella do ultimately get to live on the surface of their planet…somehow. Even in Keeper of Traken the story leaves the Trakenite people on something of a hopeful note, with a new Keeper installed to look after it. Sure, in Logopolis we learn that the Master apparently blew up Traken off screen (if I had a nickel for every time the Master blew up a planet off screen…) along with its entire solar system, but at least at the end of Keeper things are looking hopeful.
And that idea of renewal kind of extends to the show itself right? Like this is clearly a season that's transitioning into a new, renewed version of itself, at least in theory. That's why we lose Romana and the robot dog, and replace them with a couple of kids and a fairly young flight attendant. John Nathan-Turner felt that the trio of Romana, K-9 and the Doctor were too invulnerable, which is why he decided to write out the two surplus geniuses. You can see this in how stories are structured. Generally speaking in the five stories that Romana and K-9 are in this season, Romana is either confined to her own subplot or taken out of commission, while K-9 is so constantly dismantled or on very low power, it begins to feel like a running gag by the time he leaves.
And at the same time, this season shows us Romana at the absolute height of her competence. She's basically the Doctor's equal by the time we enter E-Space. I think that's why I feel like it was the right time for Romana to leave: she'd done all the developing she needed to. There was nowhere to take the character without making the show just as much about her as it was about the Doctor. So while losing Romana, and Lalla Ward with her, is a shame, it was the right time to drop her. Losing K-9 on the other hand…look the TARDIS is already about to get exceptionally crowded and unless you don't bring Nyssa back in Logopolis there really isn't time for the robot dog, but I'd argue that there was no need to drop K-9 from the show. His presence making the TARDIS team "unassailable" just doesn't hold up, as him continually being dismantled throughout this season proves. And, as Tom Baker once observed in one of the funniest outtakes in Doctor Who history "you [K-9] never fucking know the answer when it's important".
But we do eventually have to introduce the younger folks. It starts out with Alzarian teenager turned TARDIS stowaway Adric. Adric has a reputation as an awful companion, though personally I've never been that down on him. I don't love the character, but he's perfectly acceptable in small doses. The biggest issue I take with him is that he plays into the sullen teenager a bit too much. The moody teenage genius is just not an enjoyable character to follow along with, and it's only going to get worse next season. However, there are moments, particularly in Keeper of Traken where the student/pupil dynamic with the Doctor makes him genuinely likable. Also, his obvious crush on Nyssa, more seen in Logopolis is fairly endearing. But a lot of the time he's just, and I've used this phrase before, an arrogant little shit. And I think it is fair to point out that Matthew Waterhouse, inexperienced as he was, often gives a very wooden performance.
Nyssa is introduced in Keeper of Traken. There we see her interacting on her own homeworld. She takes initiative a number of times in that story, mostly during the jailbreak section which she organizes. In Logopolis she's out searching for her father and that's when she has the rug pulled out from under her. She learns that, in short order, the Master killed her father and then that he destroyed her home system. Between the two stories we get a really solid setup for Nyssa, and Sarah Sutton is really solid in the role, though whether the show will follow through on any of this in the next couple seasons…is a story for another time. And speaking of characters whose somewhat tragic first couple stories often get overlooked, in her first story Tegan learns that the Master has killed her aunt, who she was clearly quite close to. Sure, it's not on the level of Nyssa's loss, but it's not a competition. Tegan, like Nyssa, gets a strong introduction, and like Nyssa we'll see in the future how successful the followup to that introduction is.
And then, there's the Doctor. Amidst all of this change, he's the one thing that stays constant from the prior era, and he ends up feeling a bit out of place by the end of season as a result. Some of this is in retrospect of course. It's only weird seeing the 4th Doctor with Nyssa and Tegan because we think of these two as 5th Doctor companions. But I do think that there's something to the idea that the 4th Doctor belonged to the 1970s. We've now reached the 1980s and the scarf man has somewhat been left behind. Or that may be because Tom Baker just seems tired this season. He's not putting in bad work, because he knows the character too well to do that, but he does seem more disconnected than ever. Of course if I'm going to mention this, I should mention that Baker was getting over an illness during the filming of the E-Space trilogy. And he has his moments of higher energy, particularly in Keeper of Traken for whatever reason. But there are also times, even before the illness, where Tom looks like he's sleepwalking through all of this. I think it's fair to say it was time for him to leave.
On a technical level there are some changes. The Doctor's costume changed substantially, and the rest of the cast will be wearing the same clothes they were introduced in for the rest of next season (well okay, Nyssa's outfit will undergo some minor alterations). It's one of the less well-handled elements of the JNT era: people stop dressing like people, but end up stuck in costumes. This will somewhat ameliorate as time goes on, but it's something worth noting: it starts early, and was very intentional. JNT explicitly wanted all of his main cast to be wearing "uniforms". Musically we've undergone a big change as well. Dudley Simpson is gone and he's been replaced by a rotating cast of composers from the BBC Radiophonics workshop. These are all solid at bare minimum, with my favorite probably being Paddy Kingsland. As a result of this change, the style has changed considerably. Over the course of Simpson's time as composer, the show became more and more orchestral, whereas under the Radiophonics composers we've gone in a more electronic direction. It's a big shift, but by the end of the season it feels natural, and I think Doctor Who does well with a synth sound.
Season 18 begins the reign of Doctor Who's final producer. Eventually JNT will stay on too long, as even he would admit, but at this point all of his ideas feel new and fresh. They aren't all improvements, though some are, but Season 18 does feel entirely different from what came before it, and there's value in that. More than that though, other than enforcing a more serious tone than the Graham Williams era, Season 18 ends up feeling like it's going back to basics. Sure it's got an arc (two of them in fact) but all of the stories feel a lot less constrained by a style than earlier 4th Doctor era stories, which works to it's advantage. Genuinely, this is a strong season, a strong start to John Nathan-Turner's run as producer, and a strong end to the 4th Doctor era.
Even if, you know, it already felt like the show had left him behind well before he regenerated.

Awards

Best Story: State of Decay
What can I say, I like it when old Uncle Terry does horror. It's odd, I'll admit, to have talked up so much how refreshing it felt to have a season that didn't rely so much on gimmicks and then to say that my favorite story from said season to be the vampire pastiche but…I'm allowed to be self contradictory if I like. And genuinely, State of Decay works so well that it's worth highlighting my own inconsistency to highlight the story.
Worst Story: Meglos
Meglos (the character) has no motivation, the stuff on Tigella is the most boring version of a conflict we've done…probably dozens of times at this point, none of the characters are at all memorable…what a waste of the return of Jacqueline Hill.
Most Important: The Keeper of Traken
Logopolis has the regeneration and introduction of block-transfer computation, so this was a closely run thing. But Keeper introduces the version of the Master that will be sticking around for the remainder of the show, sets up a lot about Logopolis, and introduces a new companion. Like I said it's close, but this feels like the right call to me. I also could have gone with Warriors' Gate, but Keeper and Logopolis both feel much more significant to me.
Funniest Story: N/A
Often times when there's not really a comedy in a season, I go for the strangest story as a sort of proxy for the funniest story. But the strangest story this season was Warriors' Gate, and it's not the right kind of strange to qualify for this award. So we're leaving this space blank, as JNT intentionally tries to move the show away from what Graham Williams was doing with it.
Scariest Story: State of Decay
I had to chose which was scarier between the destruction of the universe via entropy or vampires and went with vampires. I think my sense of scale might be borked.

Rankings

1. State of Decay (8/10)
2. Warriors' Gate (8/10)
3. The Leisure Hive (7/10)
4. The Keeper of Traken (7/10)
5. Logopolis (7/10)
6. Full Circle (7/10)
7. Meglos (1/10)

Season Rankings
These are based on weighted averages that take into account the length of each story. Take this ranking with a grain of salt however. No average can properly reflect a full season's quality and nuance, and the scores for each story are, ultimately, highly subjective and a bit arbitrary.

1. Season 7 (8.1/10)
2. Season 10 (7.5/10)
3. Season 4 (7.0/10)
4. Season 11 (6.5/10)
5. Season 18 (6.4/10)
6. Season 12 (6.3/10)
7. Season 6 (6.3/10)
8. Season 1 (6.2/10)
9. Season 14 (6.2/10)
10. Season 13 (6.1/10)
11. Season 3 (6.0/10)
12. Season 5 (6.0/10)
13. Season 15 (5.9/10)
14. Season 2 (5.8/10)
15. Season 9 (5.8/10)
16. Season 8 (5.8/10)
17. Season 17 (5.8/10) *
18. Season 16 – The Key to Time (5.6/10)

* Includes originally unmade serial Shada
I'm genuinely considering abandoning the season/doctor era rankings portion of these posts. Do I think that Season 18 was good…absolutely. The 5th best season of the first 18 though?
What's happened here is that a lot of very solid scores (4 sevens…) have skewed the results up higher than they would otherwise have gone to the point that, even me giving Meglos a 1/10 hasn't affected it that much. The end result is a season going much higher than I would otherwise put it. Granted if I were as high on Warriors' Gate as some, I'd probably feel better about this, but if I were as high on that story as some it probably gets a perfect score and borks these rankings even further. I don't know, I guess the rankings serve their purpose as a snapshot of how good I felt any given season was on average, but I less and less feel like they're a reflection of my actual rankings of the seasons
Next Time: Somehow, I've reached the end of the 4th Doctor era. Now I just have to write about him. That's…going to be a lot.

I’ve been scrolling this sub for a few days and I see a lot of students panicking about the AP World Exam. Here are some tips from a teacher who has been teaching this course for the past decade.

1. Make sure you understand the rubrics for the essays. -Use APE for the SAQs (answer, provide evidence, explain how the evidence supports your answer) -an intro and two strong body paragraphs will get you a solid score on the LEQ -you can get a 7 on the DBQ with only 4 docs if your writing is strong. -If something like HIPP confuses you, SKIP IT! Use your time getting other points.
   
2. Focus less on memorizing dates and more on learning chronology.
   
3. When going over vocabulary, think about the SPICE-T theme and unit/time period it goes with. Here’s a gimkit game with 400 ish words gimkit vocab
   
4. At this point, focus on big events or trends. Causation is the skill that is tested the heaviest on the exam.
   
5. Still freaking out? Here are 10 events you should be able to explain:
   

-Increase use of trade routes during 1200-1450
-Growing power of land based empires
-Columbian exchange
-Political Revolutions during 1750-1900 (focus on Haiti and Lat. Am)
-Industrialization in East Asia during 1750-1900
-Imperialism
-WWI
-Cold War
-Decolonization
-Globalization

Hi, I am doing a research project on the importance of teaching IB, and I was wondering if anybody knew some of these answers.

1. Do IB teachers get paid more than a standard high school teacher
   
2. How do you get certified to teach IB? Do you need to take more college courses or do you just take a workshop?
   

Hi, are there any events or meetups for creative folks revolving around art or something? Some kind of workshop or a meetup for designers. Would appreciate some answers :)

Book 1 Prev Next
The journey back to the City of Glass is surprisingly uneventful. I suppose part of it is that we're used to the trip by now — I'm able to tune out everything that happens on the way, up to and including the strange interaction with the guards where they take a sample of my Firmament. Nothing's come of it so far, but I still make sure to give them a fake sample.
Tarin, as usual, doesn't bother. I imagine he's done this plenty of times before he ever met me, though, considering his relationship with Miktik. I doubt them having an additional sample of his Firmament is actually going to make a difference.
"What happened between you and Mari, anyway?" I ask once we've gotten past the Great Gates. Tarin looked like he needed some time to think on the journey, so I haven't asked about it so far. Now, though, he looks a little more like he's in the mood to talk.
"She tell me she worried," Tarin says. We've slowed down to a walking pace for the time being. Actually being in Isthanok means we have to be careful about Whisper being able to listen in to everything they say. I've never really thought about how suffocating that is, but the difference is stark now that I haven't had to watch my every word for the past day or so.
"About what?" I ask. I think I know the answer, but Tarin seems to want to talk it through.
"Me," Tarin says, which surprises me. It doesn't exactly mirror what she told me when we last spoke, though that was a different iteration of her. "She worry I lonely."
"I'm assuming she's not talking about the kind of loneliness I can help with," I say dryly. Tarin's expression is almost comically horrified, like he hadn't even considered that interpretation.
"No!" he squawks. "Just... I experience many things. She not. You understand?"
That much I do understand. Tarin's essentially moving on without her. He's having new experiences, encountering new people, fighting new fights — and Mari is stuck in place. I haven't made any progress in figuring out how to bring someone else into the loop intentionally, nor do I really know where to start, even with all the strides I've made in Firmament and imbuement.
"Yeah," I say. That's a little closer to what Mari talked to me about. "Do you know what you want to do about it? I've been wondering if I might be able to bring her into the loop somehow..."
To my surprise, Tarin immediately shakes his head. "She not want join," he says. "She say experiencing same thing too many times not easy."
A short silence. Then Tarin continues, "she right."
I don't have anything to say to that.
"You don't seem bored with the loops," Ahkelios points out. His chosen perch this time is on top of my head, nestled in my hair. "Not yet, anyway."
"I not bored," Tarin says. "Many things interesting. But for how long?"
"As long as you can handle it, I suppose," I say.
Maybe I've been looking at this the wrong way. Maybe I shouldn't be looking for a way to get Mari in, but a way to get Tarin out.
I'm not sure I like the idea of that.
—
Isthanok looms ahead of us. The first indication that it's near is the crystalline palace in the sky that directs the sun's glare almost directly into my eyes. This is also the first time I notice that Tough Body seems to passively increase my ability to stare into powerful sources of light without being blinded. Not that I'm about to try staring into the sun or anything.
As more of the city comes into view, however, I almost immediately notice that things are... different. I slow down, bleeding off the speed skills I've been using, and next to me Tarin does the same. We exchange cautious glances.
"I don't remember there being this many guards before," I say quietly.
More accurately, I don't remember there being any guards before. Security within Isthanok is mostly handled by He-Who-Guards and his many bodies, as I understand it. I don't ever really see them around, so presumably they're good at hiding.
Even in the last loop, where Guard began injured and apparently dying, there hadn't been any guards stationed at the borders of Isthanok. So one of two things must have happened: either Guard's condition is much worse than before, or Whisper was able to pass on a message about the Trialgoer being active.
I grimace. The changes don't bode well, but this doesn't really change what we have to do.
"We're not going to visit Miktik this time," I mutter. I feel compelled to be quiet even though we're still well out of Whisper's range — at least, I'm pretty sure we are. The Firmament doesn't get collected into her palace from this far away. "Don't want to put her at risk, and we've already seen the design for her Firmament sink."
"Your design not complete," Tarin points out, entirely reasonably.
"I'm sure I can make do," I say. Ahkelios makes it a point to rap me on the skull, at this point, and I sigh. "...Okay, we'll talk to Miktik. But I don't want to involve her any more than necessary. At this point I'm tired of seeing Whisper abuse her."
From the grim look on Tarin's face and the way he tenses up, I'm pretty sure he agrees. He confirms it a second later. "She try it again and I fight her."
"Not kill?"
Tarin snorts. "I not kill Whisper. She too strong. But I can be very, very annoying."
I can't argue with that. The idea of Tarin swooping in and out at his blistering pace and annoying Whisper makes me smirk a bit.
That smirk quickly falls away as we approach the guards that stand at the border to Isthanok.
They're both silverwisps, and considering how unkempt their uniforms are and the way they keep looking nervously between one another, I'm guessing neither of them are used to the job — they hold their weapons like they're toys rather than weapons.
Their weapons are large marbles filled with deadly Firmament. I hope they know what side the Firmament is supposed to come out from — the spherical shape doesn't really give you a lot of clues. I can tell there's a cone of energy in there with my Firmament sense, but barring that, there are no markings that might indicate a firing direction.
"That looks like a disaster waiting to happen," I mutter.
The noise is enough for the two silverwisps to take notice. One of them steps forward. "What's your purpose in Isthanok today?" he asks. I note the sudden concentration of Firmament being drawn up to Whisper's palace — she's listening in.
"Visit!" Tarin squawks. "We want visit—"
"—a kobold-run shop we heard about," I interrupt. "I think it's called Thys and Thaht?"
Tarin gives me a baffled look. I ignore him.
"Really?" the guard seems surprised. I feel the focused Firmament waver a bit — Whisper's lost interest and is going back to passive listening. "Not a very popular shop, that one."
"Why not?" I ask.
He shrugs. "Too many explosions," he says, waving a hand. "How long will you be staying in Isthanok?"
"Not long," I say. "Maybe a day or two. We're going to check out the Craven Arena, too."
"Oh?" the guard leans forward, suddenly interested. "As a spectator, or a fighter?"
...That smells like a trap. I feign embarrassment and laugh. "I doubt I'd last a second in the ring."
"Most people don't," the silverwisp says, his pendant displaying a smirk. He takes a step back — evidently, I gave him the answer he wanted to hear — and waves us both in. "You're clear. Enjoy your time in Isthanok."
Tarin and I make our way past him, a little bemused by the whole experience. Everything inside Isthanok hasn't changed, at least. The Firmament feels a little different, but I'm guessing that's because of Guard's absence, which speaks volumes as to his power.
"We go shop?" Tarin asks. His way of asking about the kobold shop I mentioned, I suppose. Anything more specific might be an obvious tipoff, especially if Whisper knows that the Trial is now active.
"Let's get your friend first," I say. "Bring her along. I'm sure she'd be interested in what they've got."
I'm not just saying that, either. Whatever tech or imbuements they use are seriously impressive, considering the difficulty I had against that one piloted robot. Tarin nods thoughtfully in response.
We make our way once more to Miktik's workshop, ducking through the hole in the fence and the Firmament barrier that separates the two sections of the city. Like before, the abrupt change in noise is jarring — this part of the city is much louder than any other. I wonder if that's why the barrier exists, to dampen and filter out the sound that Whisper receives as she listens in on the city. It's not like that's a trivial imbuement to keep running.
"Something feel different," Tarin says suddenly. I blink.
"Does it?" I glance around. Nothing looks particularly out of the ordinary.
"I feel it too," Ahkelios says. The little guy twitches in his spot in my hair — I can't see him, but I can feel him shifting uncomfortably. Not a great sign.
I flick on Firmament Sight. My natural Firmament sense is good, but I'm not able to organize the information as quickly as I can with a visual reference. The moment I do, I see it.
There's... a gradient, for lack of a better word. The Firmament looks normal at first glance, but a second look shows that it's getting gradually denser as it approaches the direction of Miktik's workshop, and while the workshop itself is still out of range for me, this is enough to warrant caution.
Evidently, Ahkelios and Tarin have developed their instincts enough to know when something is wrong, even if they can't pinpoint what it is. I'll have to work on that.
"There's some kind of concentration of Firmament up ahead," I say. "It's subtle, but it's there."
Ahkelios opens his mouth to ask me a question, then pauses, sending said question through our bond instead. What changed this time? he asks. Whisper took longer to send for MIktik last time. This is too soon.
I shrug. No idea, I admit. But I'm guessing Whisper has some idea of what's going on now.
You think she's got something to do with this, then?
Maybe. It's the only thing I can think of, anyway. We'll find out. Not like a bit of Firmament is going to stop us.
Book 1 Prev Next
Author's Note: Reddit seems to have changed the submission page and now pasting into the text box doesn't retain formatting no matter what subreddit I try to paste in, so I'm using a markdown exporter instead. Hopefully that doesn't cause any problems.
Thanks for reading! This story is also on RoyalRoad, and I'd appreciate any support via Patreon.

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Hi everyone,
I hope you are all having a good day!
My stutter has plagued every aspect of my life, in every way it possibly could. Growing up in school, I had countless experiences which led me to feel embarrassed, ashamed of myself, and even made me end up on my bed at the end of the day, crying my eyes out. The bullying, relentless shaming, belittling, just because I took an extra few seconds to say what I wanted, was detrimental to my mental health.
As a result of all this, I strayed away from the vast majority of speaking opportunities. I barely started conversations, rarely took part in class discussions, never took part in the debating team, rarely made phone calls and rarely made new friends. Mostly, I spoke when spoken to, and kept conversations as short as possible.
Living like this for years meant that I became quite a reclusive person, who did everything in his power to hide stuttering. I convinced myself that I liked this, and found comfort in solitary. This of course was not good for my mental health, or my stutter. As you can imagine, at this point of my life, public speaking was quite literally the last thing I could ever imagine myself doing.
However, just before I went to university (age 18), I had one of the worst speaking experiences of my life. This was a massive wake up call for me, and made me rethink my entire life. I essentially thought what my life would look like if I was just a passive passenger to my stutter. Those thoughts and realisations of the potential future, shook me to my core. I knew a change had to be made, but I just did not know how.
Fast forward a few months, and a bunch more negative speaking experiences, and I am in my first term of university. I am browsing the SU page, and see something which honestly strikes fear into the hearts of all speakers, let alone little old me with a stutter. I see:
"Public Speaking Taster Session" - Led by the university public speaking society
Now, I am sure many of you will understand this, but damn was that a scary proposition. Speaking in and of itself was terrifying, this was another level. But, there was something about it, which made me attend. To this day, I don't know what it was. However, there are some things in life, which quite literally change the path you were going to take in this world. They pivot you in a completely different direction. Attending this session was that pivot for me.
Expecting to be mocked and ridiculed for my stutter, what actually occurred was the opposite. The public speaking society had one of the most welcoming, supportive and encouraging environments I had ever been in. There was no judgement, no belittling and no mocking. Everyone there, including the exec team, genuinely wanted to help you improve to make you the best communicator you could be.
I was instantly hooked, and attended every weekly session. I started becoming better at public speaking, and continued to hone this skill. I entered competitions, I won some of them too. Simultaneously as this, I took help from a speech coach who was the first person in my life to say, we will work on getting you over the fear of stuttering, rather than achieving fluency. This new approach was monumental for me, as I had always been trying to be fluent, I never thought once about dealing with the underlying fears. Through intensive exposure therapy and a great support group, my fears of stuttering did indeed start to diminish. Therefore, although the aim was never to be fluent, fluency naturally became more prominent in my speaking as the fear dropped. For those wondering what sort of exposure therapy it was, essentially the aim was to desensitize your brain to stuttering, and more importantly, the judgements you got from others whilst stuttering. Thus, I was made to have dozens of interactions both IRL and on the phone, where I had to stutter on purpose throughout. Seems counter-intuitive at first, but it works wonders.
By the end of the academic year, I decided to run for presidency. I was highest voted for, and then became president of the public speaking society. I then led it for a year. In this I would deliver weekly workshops to 80-100 people on how to become better speakers. This included coaching skills such as body language, vocal variety, confidence.. etc.
On top of this large group coaching, I also had a smaller group of people (5-6), which I also coached on a weekly basis. I stepped down from presidency after a year to focus more on my studies, however I still continued to coach public speaking to the smaller groups for an additional year. After graduating and leaving university, I started my day job in London. However, I realised there was a massive public speaking shaped hole in my heart. I searched far and wide to find public speaking clubs which could replicate the feeling I had at university, but I found none. So, I decided to start my own.
That is when I founded my own public speaking coaching platform, which I run to this day alongside my day job. On it I use all my experiences as a stutterer and public speaker, to help people get over their fears of speaking/public speaking, and become the most expressive and confident communicators they can be.
To this day, I am still a stutterer. I still stutter in my life, in various different speaking interactions. However, the stutter no longer holds me back from doing what I want to do. It no longer scares me as much as it used to. In some ways, I have to thank my stutter, because without it, I don't think I would have had the relentless drive, which caused me to pursue every avenue possible to become the best speaker I possibly could. People often say to me that most fluent individuals stray away from public speaking, yet I with a stutter ran towards it. I do still wonder to this day what direction my life would have taken if I didn't attend that taster session. It probably would have been very different to what it is now.
I am more than happy to answer any questions about anything related to my post, please do ask them below.
Always remember, you have a voice, never stop using it.

Hi everyone,
I hope you are all having a good day!
My stutter has plagued every aspect of my life, in every way it possibly could. Growing up in school, I had countless experiences which led me to feel embarrassed, ashamed of myself, and even made me end up on my bed at the end of the day, crying my eyes out. The bullying, relentless shaming, belittling, just because I took an extra few seconds to say what I wanted, was detrimental to my mental health.
As a result of all this, I strayed away from the vast majority of speaking opportunities. I barely started conversations, rarely took part in class discussions, never took part in the debating team, rarely made phone calls and rarely made new friends. Mostly, I spoke when spoken to, and kept conversations as short as possible.
Living like this for years meant that I became quite a reclusive person, who did everything in his power to hide stuttering. I convinced myself that I liked this, and found comfort in solitary. This of course was not good for my mental health, or my stutter. As you can imagine, at this point of my life, public speaking was quite literally the last thing I could ever imagine myself doing.
However, just before I went to university (age 18), I had one of the worst speaking experiences of my life. This was a massive wake up call for me, and made me rethink my entire life. I essentially thought what my life would look like if I was just a passive passenger to my stutter. Those thoughts and realisations of the potential future, shook me to my core. I knew a change had to be made, but I just did not know how.
Fast forward a few months, and a bunch more negative speaking experiences, and I am in my first term of university. I am browsing the SU page, and see something which honestly strikes fear into the hearts of all speakers, let alone little old me with a stutter. I see:
"Public Speaking Taster Session" - Led by the university public speaking society
Now, I am sure many of you will understand this, but damn was that a scary proposition. Speaking in and of itself was terrifying, this was another level. But, there was something about it, which made me attend. To this day, I don't know what it was. However, there are some things in life, which quite literally change the path you were going to take in this world. They pivot you in a completely different direction. Attending this session was that pivot for me.
Expecting to be mocked and ridiculed for my stutter, what actually occurred was the opposite. The public speaking society had one of the most welcoming, supportive and encouraging environments I had ever been in. There was no judgement, no belittling and no mocking. Everyone there, including the exec team, genuinely wanted to help you improve to make you the best communicator you could be.
I was instantly hooked, and attended every weekly session. I started becoming better at public speaking, and continued to hone this skill. I entered competitions, I won some of them too. Simultaneously as this, I took help from a speech coach who was the first person in my life to say, we will work on getting you over the fear of stuttering, rather than achieving fluency. This new approach was monumental for me, as I had always been trying to be fluent, I never thought once about dealing with the underlying fears. Through intensive exposure therapy and a great support group, my fears of stuttering did indeed start to diminish. Therefore, although the aim was never to be fluent, fluency naturally became more prominent in my speaking as the fear dropped. For those wondering what sort of exposure therapy it was, essentially the aim was to desensitize your brain to stuttering, and more importantly, the judgements you got from others whilst stuttering. Thus, I was made to have dozens of interactions both IRL and on the phone, where I had to stutter on purpose throughout. Seems counter-intuitive at first, but it works wonders.
By the end of the academic year, I decided to run for presidency. I was highest voted for, and then became president of the public speaking society. I then led it for a year. In this I would deliver weekly workshops to 80-100 people on how to become better speakers. This included coaching skills such as body language, vocal variety, confidence.. etc.
On top of this large group coaching, I also had a smaller group of people (5-6), which I also coached on a weekly basis. I stepped down from presidency after a year to focus more on my studies, however I still continued to coach public speaking to the smaller groups for an additional year. After graduating and leaving university, I started my day job in London. However, I realised there was a massive public speaking shaped hole in my heart. I searched far and wide to find public speaking clubs which could replicate the feeling I had at university, but I found none. So, I decided to start my own.
That is when I founded my own public speaking coaching platform, which I run to this day alongside my day job. On it I use all my experiences as a stutterer and public speaker, to help people get over their fears of speaking/public speaking, and become the most expressive and confident communicators they can be.
To this day, I am still a stutterer. I still stutter in my life, in various different speaking interactions. However, the stutter no longer holds me back from doing what I want to do. It no longer scares me as much as it used to. In some ways, I have to thank my stutter, because without it, I don't think I would have had the relentless drive, which caused me to pursue every avenue possible to become the best speaker I possibly could. People often say to me that most fluent individuals stray away from public speaking, yet I with a stutter ran towards it. I do still wonder to this day what direction my life would have taken if I didn't attend that taster session. It probably would have been very different to what it is now.
I am more than happy to answer any questions about anything related to my post, please do ask them below. If you don't want to post below, feel free to dm me!
Always remember, you have a voice, never stop using it.

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Also be sure to check out past iterations of the thread, as past discussions may prove to be useful for you as well!

Hi everyone,
I hope you are all having a good day!
My stutter has plagued every aspect of my life, in every way it possibly could. Growing up in school, I had countless experiences which led me to feel embarrassed, ashamed of myself, and even made me end up on my bed at the end of the day, crying my eyes out. The bullying, relentless shaming, belittling, just because I took an extra few seconds to say what I wanted, was detrimental to my mental health.
As a result of all this, I strayed away from the vast majority of speaking opportunities. I barely started conversations, rarely took part in class discussions, never took part in the debating team, rarely made phone calls and rarely made new friends. Mostly, I spoke when spoken to, and kept conversations as short as possible.
Living like this for years meant that I became quite a reclusive person, who did everything in his power to hide stuttering. I convinced myself that I liked this, and found comfort in solitary. This of course was not good for my mental health, or my stutter. As you can imagine, at this point of my life, public speaking was quite literally the last thing I could ever imagine myself doing.
However, just before I went to university (age 18), I had one of the worst speaking experiences of my life. This was a massive wake up call for me, and made me rethink my entire life. I essentially thought what my life would look like if I was just a passive passenger to my stutter. Those thoughts and realisations of the potential future, shook me to my core. I knew a change had to be made, but I just did not know how.
Fast forward a few months, and a bunch more negative speaking experiences, and I am in my first term of university. I am browsing the SU page, and see something which honestly strikes fear into the hearts of all speakers, let alone little old me with a stutter. I see:
"Public Speaking Taster Session" - Led by the university public speaking society
Now, I am sure many of you will understand this, but damn was that a scary proposition. Speaking in and of itself was terrifying, this was another level. But, there was something about it, which made me attend. To this day, I don't know what it was. However, there are some things in life, which quite literally change the path you were going to take in this world. They pivot you in a completely different direction. Attending this session was that pivot for me.
Expecting to be mocked and ridiculed for my stutter, what actually occurred was the opposite. The public speaking society had one of the most welcoming, supportive and encouraging environments I had ever been in. There was no judgement, no belittling and no mocking. Everyone there, including the exec team, genuinely wanted to help you improve to make you the best communicator you could be.
I was instantly hooked, and attended every weekly session. I started becoming better at public speaking, and continued to hone this skill. I entered competitions, I won some of them too. Simultaneously as this, I took help from a speech coach who was the first person in my life to say, we will work on getting you over the fear of stuttering, rather than achieving fluency. This new approach was monumental for me, as I had always been trying to be fluent, I never thought once about dealing with the underlying fears. Through intensive exposure therapy and a great support group, my fears of stuttering did indeed start to diminish. Therefore, although the aim was never to be fluent, fluency naturally became more prominent in my speaking as the fear dropped. For those wondering what sort of exposure therapy it was, essentially the aim was to desensitize your brain to stuttering, and more importantly, the judgements you got from others whilst stuttering. Thus, I was made to have dozens of interactions both IRL and on the phone, where I had to stutter on purpose throughout. Seems counter-intuitive at first, but it works wonders.
By the end of the academic year, I decided to run for presidency. I was highest voted for, and then became president of the public speaking society. I then led it for a year. In this I would deliver weekly workshops to 80-100 people on how to become better speakers. This included coaching skills such as body language, vocal variety, confidence.. etc.
On top of this large group coaching, I also had a smaller group of people (5-6), which I also coached on a weekly basis. I stepped down from presidency after a year to focus more on my studies, however I still continued to coach public speaking to the smaller groups for an additional year. After graduating and leaving university, I started my day job in London. However, I realised there was a massive public speaking shaped hole in my heart. I searched far and wide to find public speaking clubs which could replicate the feeling I had at university, but I found none. So, I decided to start my own.
That is when I founded my own public speaking coaching platform, which I run to this day alongside my day job. On it I use all my experiences as a stutterer and public speaker, to help people get over their fears of speaking/public speaking, and become the most expressive and confident communicators they can be.
To this day, I am still a stutterer. I still stutter in my life, in various different speaking interactions. However, the stutter no longer holds me back from doing what I want to do. It no longer scares me as much as it used to. In some ways, I have to thank my stutter, because without it, I don't think I would have had the relentless drive, which caused me to pursue every avenue possible to become the best speaker I possibly could. People often say to me that most fluent individuals stray away from public speaking, yet I with a stutter ran towards it. I do still wonder to this day what direction my life would have taken if I didn't attend that taster session. It probably would have been very different to what it is now.
I am more than happy to answer any questions about anything related to my post, please do ask them below. If you don't want to ask below, you can also dm me!
Always remember, you have a voice, never stop using it.

Hi everyone,
I hope you are all having a good day!
My stutter has plagued every aspect of my life, in every way it possibly could. Growing up in school, I had countless experiences which led me to feel embarrassed, ashamed of myself, and even made me end up on my bed at the end of the day, crying my eyes out. The bullying, relentless shaming, belittling, just because I took an extra few seconds to say what I wanted, was detrimental to my mental health.
As a result of all this, I strayed away from the vast majority of speaking opportunities. I barely started conversations, rarely took part in class discussions, never took part in the debating team, rarely made phone calls and rarely made new friends. Mostly, I spoke when spoken to, and kept conversations as short as possible.
Living like this for years meant that I became quite a reclusive person, who did everything in his power to hide stuttering. I convinced myself that I liked this, and found comfort in solitary. This of course was not good for my mental health, or my stutter. As you can imagine, at this point of my life, public speaking was quite literally the last thing I could ever imagine myself doing.
However, just before I went to university (age 18), I had one of the worst speaking experiences of my life. This was a massive wake up call for me, and made me rethink my entire life. I essentially thought what my life would look like if I was just a passive passenger to my stutter. Those thoughts and realisations of the potential future, shook me to my core. I knew a change had to be made, but I just did not know how.
Fast forward a few months, and a bunch more negative speaking experiences, and I am in my first term of university. I am browsing the SU page, and see something which honestly strikes fear into the hearts of all speakers, let alone little old me with a stutter. I see:
"Public Speaking Taster Session" - Led by the university public speaking society
Now, I am sure many of you will understand this, but damn was that a scary proposition. Speaking in and of itself was terrifying, this was another level. But, there was something about it, which made me attend. To this day, I don't know what it was. However, there are some things in life, which quite literally change the path you were going to take in this world. They pivot you in a completely different direction. Attending this session was that pivot for me.
Expecting to be mocked and ridiculed for my stutter, what actually occurred was the opposite. The public speaking society had one of the most welcoming, supportive and encouraging environments I had ever been in. There was no judgement, no belittling and no mocking. Everyone there, including the exec team, genuinely wanted to help you improve to make you the best communicator you could be.
I was instantly hooked, and attended every weekly session. I started becoming better at public speaking, and continued to hone this skill. I entered competitions, I won some of them too. Simultaneously as this, I took help from a speech coach who was the first person in my life to say, we will work on getting you over the fear of stuttering, rather than achieving fluency. This new approach was monumental for me, as I had always been trying to be fluent, I never thought once about dealing with the underlying fears. Through intensive exposure therapy and a great support group, my fears of stuttering did indeed start to diminish. Therefore, although the aim was never to be fluent, fluency naturally became more prominent in my speaking as the fear dropped. For those wondering what sort of exposure therapy it was, essentially the aim was to desensitize your brain to stuttering, and more importantly, the judgements you got from others whilst stuttering. Thus, I was made to have dozens of interactions both IRL and on the phone, where I had to stutter on purpose throughout. Seems counter-intuitive at first, but it works wonders.
By the end of the academic year, I decided to run for presidency. I was highest voted for, and then became president of the public speaking society. I then led it for a year. In this I would deliver weekly workshops to 80-100 people on how to become better speakers. This included coaching skills such as body language, vocal variety, confidence.. etc.
On top of this large group coaching, I also had a smaller group of people (5-6), which I also coached on a weekly basis. I stepped down from presidency after a year to focus more on my studies, however I still continued to coach public speaking to the smaller groups for an additional year. After graduating and leaving university, I started my day job in London. However, I realised there was a massive public speaking shaped hole in my heart. I searched far and wide to find public speaking clubs which could replicate the feeling I had at university, but I found none. So, I decided to start my own.
That is when I founded my own public speaking coaching platform, which I run to this day alongside my day job. On it I use all my experiences as a stutterer and public speaker, to help people get over their fears of speaking/public speaking, and become the most expressive and confident communicators they can be.
To this day, I am still a stutterer. I still stutter in my life, in various different speaking interactions. However, the stutter no longer holds me back from doing what I want to do. It no longer scares me as much as it used to. In some ways, I have to thank my stutter, because without it, I don't think I would have had the relentless drive, which caused me to pursue every avenue possible to become the best speaker I possibly could. People often say to me that most fluent individuals stray away from public speaking, yet I with a stutter ran towards it. I do still wonder to this day what direction my life would have taken if I didn't attend that taster session. It probably would have been very different to what it is now.
I am more than happy to answer any questions about anything related to my post, please do ask them below. If you don't want to ask below, you can also dm me!
Always remember, you have a voice, never stop using it.

Hi everyone,
I hope you are all having a good day!
My stutter has plagued every aspect of my life, in every way it possibly could. Growing up in school, I had countless experiences which led me to feel embarrassed, ashamed of myself, and even made me end up on my bed at the end of the day, crying my eyes out. The bullying, relentless shaming, belittling, just because I took an extra few seconds to say what I wanted, was detrimental to my mental health.
As a result of all this, I strayed away from the vast majority of speaking opportunities. I barely started conversations, rarely took part in class discussions, never took part in the debating team, rarely made phone calls and rarely made new friends. Mostly, I spoke when spoken to, and kept conversations as short as possible.
Living like this for years meant that I became quite a reclusive person, who did everything in his power to hide stuttering. I convinced myself that I liked this, and found comfort in solitary. This of course was not good for my mental health, or my stutter. As you can imagine, at this point of my life, public speaking was quite literally the last thing I could ever imagine myself doing.
However, just before I went to university (age 18), I had one of the worst speaking experiences of my life. This was a massive wake up call for me, and made me rethink my entire life. I essentially thought what my life would look like if I was just a passive passenger to my stutter. Those thoughts and realisations of the potential future, shook me to my core. I knew a change had to be made, but I just did not know how.
Fast forward a few months, and a bunch more negative speaking experiences, and I am in my first term of university. I am browsing the SU page, and see something which honestly strikes fear into the hearts of all speakers, let alone little old me with a stutter. I see:
"Public Speaking Taster Session" - Led by the university public speaking society
Now, I am sure many of you will understand this, but damn was that a scary proposition. Speaking in and of itself was terrifying, this was another level. But, there was something about it, which made me attend. To this day, I don't know what it was. However, there are some things in life, which quite literally change the path you were going to take in this world. They pivot you in a completely different direction. Attending this session was that pivot for me.
Expecting to be mocked and ridiculed for my stutter, what actually occurred was the opposite. The public speaking society had one of the most welcoming, supportive and encouraging environments I had ever been in. There was no judgement, no belittling and no mocking. Everyone there, including the exec team, genuinely wanted to help you improve to make you the best communicator you could be.
I was instantly hooked, and attended every weekly session. I started becoming better at public speaking, and continued to hone this skill. I entered competitions, I won some of them too. Simultaneously as this, I took help from a speech coach who was the first person in my life to say, we will work on getting you over the fear of stuttering, rather than achieving fluency. This new approach was monumental for me, as I had always been trying to be fluent, I never thought once about dealing with the underlying fears. Through intensive exposure therapy and a great support group, my fears of stuttering did indeed start to diminish. Therefore, although the aim was never to be fluent, fluency naturally became more prominent in my speaking as the fear dropped. For those wondering what sort of exposure therapy it was, essentially the aim was to desensitize your brain to stuttering, and more importantly, the judgements you got from others whilst stuttering. Thus, I was made to have dozens of interactions both IRL and on the phone, where I had to stutter on purpose throughout. Seems counter-intuitive at first, but it works wonders.
By the end of the academic year, I decided to run for presidency. I was highest voted for, and then became president of the public speaking society. I then led it for a year. In this I would deliver weekly workshops to 80-100 people on how to become better speakers. This included coaching skills such as body language, vocal variety, confidence.. etc.
On top of this large group coaching, I also had a smaller group of people (5-6), which I also coached on a weekly basis. I stepped down from presidency after a year to focus more on my studies, however I still continued to coach public speaking to the smaller groups for an additional year. After graduating and leaving university, I started my day job in London. However, I realised there was a massive public speaking shaped hole in my heart. I searched far and wide to find public speaking clubs which could replicate the feeling I had at university, but I found none. So, I decided to start my own.
That is when I founded my own public speaking coaching platform, which I run to this day alongside my day job. On it I use all my experiences as a stutterer and public speaker, to help people get over their fears of speaking/public speaking, and become the most expressive and confident communicators they can be.
To this day, I am still a stutterer. I still stutter in my life, in various different speaking interactions. However, the stutter no longer holds me back from doing what I want to do. It no longer scares me as much as it used to. In some ways, I have to thank my stutter, because without it, I don't think I would have had the relentless drive, which caused me to pursue every avenue possible to become the best speaker I possibly could. People often say to me that most fluent individuals stray away from public speaking, yet I with a stutter ran towards it. I do still wonder to this day what direction my life would have taken if I didn't attend that taster session. It probably would have been very different to what it is now.
I am more than happy to answer any questions about anything related to my post, please do ask them below. If you don't want to ask below, you can also dm me!
Always remember, you have a voice, never stop using it.