Studying Online;Succeeding through Distance Learning at University

148 Studying online 
counsel students who have been in various states of fear about 
presenting. Occasionally, I’ve had to refer students to the universi-
ty’s well-being team so that they can gain professional counselling 
or therapy for their extreme state of fear. Fortunately, that is rare. 
However, if you are horribly frightened by making presentations, 
support is available. 
QUICK TIP: If you have an extreme fear of making presenta-
tions, contact your university’s counselling service. They will 
provide you with coping strategies. 
For students on the campus, they will be expected to make pre-
sentations face-to-face in a classroom or lecture theatre. Tat can 
be particularly frightening because students are out of their com-
fort zone. Usually, they would be sitting in class with all eyes on 
the lecturer. Now, they are in the front of the class, with all their 
fellow students looking at them. Plus, if the presentation is as-
sessed, the student knows that their lecturer is taking notes and 
fnding things that could be wrong with what they are doing. For 
students who are studying at home, via the Internet, it might seem 
that it is less frightening. Tat is not the case. You might be in a 
more comfortable environment, such as sitting at the desk in your 
bedroom. However, what you see on the screen are all the faces 
of the rest of the class staring right at you. In fact, being scared of 
online presenting is so common these days it has a special name. 
It is called “Zoom anxiety”. In one study of this phenomenon, 73 
per cent of people who were involved in online meetings sufered 
from this issue (Bufalo 7, 2020). It simply isn’t the case that be-
cause you are in familiar surroundings, sitting at home, that you 
won’t be anxious about making presentations. People who have to 
present online have just the same kind of fears as those students 
who make presentations in a physical classroom. 
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