STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

Kelly · Hermes

Do/did you dress up for presentations in college?

Starstuff · Kenneth Cole

I'm in grad (business) school now and everyone gets dressed up (men in suites and ties, women in suits) for presentations, which is think is pretty normal for BSchool b/c the presentations are suppose to approximate what you'd have to give in the 'real world', but personally I find it kind of dumb b/c the presentations are usually fairly unprofessional and it is strange to see people who normally come to class in jeans suddenly show up in suites just for a 15-minute presentation. Anyway, I wouldn't sweat it.

pollyjean23 · Marc Jacobs

I honestly cannot remember. But, one time during grad school, I didn't dress up for a presentation at all- - in fact I looked horrible. The instructor made a comment. That was one of my last classes for which I had to do a presentation, but I imagine I would've dressed up more. I hated that class anyway.

I do presentations as part of my job now several times a semester; I definitely dress up because I'm trying tp get students to do the same.

HeatherLynn · Gucci

I only dressed up for my capstone class. The rest of my presentations I dressed casually. I agree with Starstuff about it not really mattering what you wear. I was in the engineering college where there is a huge emphasis on presenting and they never cared what we wore. In the real world I always dress a little more professionally when I am presenting though.

dangergirl · Kate Spade

i have always dressed casually but not scruffy for presentations.
i don't really think it matters what you're wearing, but this year, one of my lecturers told the 1st years that it would "stand them in good stead to be dressed smartly" and most of them wore proper smart dresses (suits for boys) for their presentation. but the lecturer who told them that is probably the only one who would really care what anyone wore

cahabo · Kate Spade

I've only had to do one presentation so far and the other people just dressed how they normally dress. I always dress pretty casual, so I just wore a better casual outfit. I thought it would seem funny if I dressed up for a short presentation.

littlebean · Kate Spade

A little bit, but in grad school, definitely!

Claudia · Gucci

ahh! I don't like presentations. I've only given one in my comm class my first year of undergrad. I don't think I dressed up.

jrhampt · Kenneth Cole

can't remember if I did in undergrad, but I did for grad school.

zeitgeist4 · Gucci

I was a Communication major too! I think I only had two group presentations. One was for a Comm class and everyone wore their normal street clothes. The other was for Sociology (which I minored in) and everyone wore street clothes.

Kelly · Hermes

Wow I'm kind of surprised. I guess I don't normally pay attention to what other presenters are wearing, because the more I read what you guys wrote and the more presentations I've seen this week (it's towards the end of the semester...practically every course is just presentations now!), it seems like most people tend towards street clothes. I would have thought that dressing nicely would've been more common - obviously it's not a necessity, but it surprised me that it was less common than I thought. One professor my first semester at college told us to dress nicely, even though I had already planned on it...and I guess it just kind of stuck with me

Lilykind · Hermes

I dressed up more than my fellow college students for all my presentations. I like pretty, dressy clothes so I made up excuses to get dressed nicely. I usually wore dresses with casual-ish heels or ballet flats. I know it wasn't common because most of my classmates were in the same ratty deisgner jeans (when destroyed was the in thing) and rainbow flips they wore everyday.

I spent my last semester in business casual because I was working at an office full-time in addition to taking classes. I was comfortable in my own skin, but I did get a lot of stares because my college campus was really casual.

Sandy · Kate Spade

In the program I'm taking at my school, we have to give presentations in front of a "jury" at the end of each quarter. The jury consists of anywhere between 3 and 15 professors, plus whoever wants to drop by and watch. The presentations get more formal as you get closer to completion of your degree. When we started, we presented in front of three professors that we had in class, just to make us comfortable as we got used to the idea. Most students dressed casually. This quarter I think I'm looking at presenting to about 7 or 8 professors and I'll dress business casual. You can always tell when students have an important jury coming up, because they're all dressed in suits and ties and dresses.