By Sarah Grishpul
Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) students can test their public speaking skills at an upcoming competition called Talk It Out, hosted by TEDxTorontoMetU and TMU Toastmasters on March 20.
TEDxTorontoMetU is a TMU student-run chapter under the grassroots initiative TEDx that promotes the sharing of ideas through speech as mentioned on their Instagram page. Meanwhile, TMU Toastmasters is a student club dedicated to fostering public speaking skills at the university, according to their website.
The joint Talk It Out competition is a speech competition with a live audience and judges from both the TMU branches of TEDx and Toastmasters, as stated on their Instagram.
According to TEDxTorontoMetU president and third-year global management student Dhruvi Dhami, the idea behind the competition emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic while everyone was navigating quarantine.
“That was the main goal, to start getting people into that zone again where they are speaking in front of a lot of people,” said Dhami.
Once students could return to school and host in-person gatherings, a former Vice President of Events developed the idea with a member of Toastmasters. Since then, the competition has been a joint effort between the two student groups.
Muhammadali Jiwan is a recent TMU graduate who participated in the competition in 2024 and took home gold. Despite winning, he claimed there was much more to gain from the experience aside from the first place prize.
“It is the scariest moment of your whole entire life, but it’s also the most rewarding when that one minute is up and you hear that timer go off and look at yourself and think ‘Yeah, I did it,’” he said.
Jiwan had participated in Talk It Out during both his third year and final years of study at TMU. He said that being involved in the competition helped him build confidence in his communication skills.
“Speaking in front of big groups of people without having any preparation compared to being in a work environment, once you’ve done that big one the other one doesn’t seem as bad,” said Jiwan.
Dhami expressed that students in any career field can benefit from developing their public speaking skills.
“Public speaking or speaking in general is very essential even in your everyday life. If you go job hunting, you have to network,” said Dhami. “You have to talk to random people, and meet random people [and have] these random conversations.”
Dhami added that this competition also provides students the opportunity to step outside their comfort zones.
“Even when you’re making a prepared speech it takes you days to come up with your thoughts, to restructure them, to know what you want to say,” she said. “But to have 30 seconds to prepare and talk about something random—[it] takes guts.”
TMU students were given the opportunity to audition in front of a panel of student judges from TEDx and Toastmasters on March 3 and still can on March 5. These auditions are meant to prepare speakers for the main event, as they are given random questions with just under a minute to prepare a short speech.
One change made from previous years is the number of students chosen to participate. According to the TMU Toastmasters president and third-year business management student Zayed Pasha, the number of students making it past auditions was cut in half from 20 students to 10, to create more competition and excitement.
“Think of the audience perspective when you’re sitting there, do you really want to listen to 20 strangers get up there and talk? Because that takes almost two hours. It can be very, very difficult,” said Pasha.
During the main event, 10 speakers will be brought on to the stage one-by-one in front of a student audience to compete in a first round. In the past two years, following the first round the floor would open up for audience members to perform as well.
While Pasha said both student groups are currently undecided on whether to bring the open floor concept back this year, Dhami is hoping to continue the tradition.
“It brings an element of surprise,” she said, referring to the unexpected audition.
The audience will then vote on their top five speakers, who will proceed to the second round which is judged by a panel of public speaking professionals. The top three winners will then go on to receive prize money ranging from $150 for third place to $800 for first place.
The next audition will be taking place March 5 followed by the main event on March 20. Students can register for the final and second audition day with the link in the Toastmasters Instagram bio.
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