Introduce yourself to our readers! What should people know about you?

Hi dear all, my name is Seylan Musayeva. I study at the University of Szeged, faculty of Economics. I love to experience diversity and that is the reason why I was involved in various exchange programs around the globe from my school years. My nature is extremely spontaneous.

You won the first prize of the university’s presentation competition. What do you think makes you such a good presenter?

It was an honour and a huge responsibility for me to represent my faculty, the most challenging part being that I was the only international participant of the final competition. In my opinion, what makes one a great presenter is the ability to be totally themselves, expressing their ideas about a given topic in a very natural way. So the key is: Be yourself!

How did you prepare for the competition?

First of all, I was looking for a topic that is an actual issue of modern society so that the audience would get involved in the content of the presentation. Once you succeed in picking a good topic to present you can start working on your body language and gestures in order to grab the attention and interest of the audience.

Do you have any advice for other students interested in public speaking?

Well, according to what I experienced- the best way to improve your public speaking skills is to do as much presentations as possible,enlarging the target group or the audience every time and be involved in social activities such as debates and so. In addition, watching the videos of famous moderators and speakers influenced me as well by motivating me to express myself as those professionals are free to do.

What did you take away from the competition? Do feel that you have learnt something new at all?

Surely yes! As I mentioned before presenting as much as possible helps to improve speaking skills especially in such prestigeous events as this competition and the victory inspires you to overcome your insecurities and look for other opportunities.

Do you have any specific plans for your future studies? What sorts of topics interest you most?

I have some sketches on my mind of what I am interested in and where I see myself in about 5 years. One of those is that I love the arts and I like to put creativity in whatever I do so marketing would be a good possibility for my future career and studies. On the other hand, I am big fan of maths in practice, analysis and forecasting, so financial analysis would be a suitable option for my future as well. I am not exactly concentrated on one thing for now, I think upcoming years at the University of Szeged will help me to determine my destiny.