Echoes: Public Speaking and Persuasion in the Pandemic

More than a year have passed since we left our physical classrooms and transitioned into virtual and digital modes of learning. The hallways that used to be hubs of conversations and socials are now languid, hushed in the absence of students, professors, and courses that were taught in these spaces during bygone days. All that’s left is a faint ricochet, an echo, of what this place once was. Indeed, echoes are born out of distance. However, echoes can also come from resounding voices, and if we look around us, echoes are everywhere. In art, in our digital spaces, in the streets, in our communities, in us. Amid the pandemic, we had grown to be conduits of messages of solidarity, we had learned to become agents of minuscule positive social changes— all this despite the distance. “Echoes” takes you on a walkthrough over a semester of Speech 30 under the pandemic. This journal-portfolio talks about my learnings, reflections, and appreciations for this class. Cheers!