BU Today: Afraid of Public Speaking? This Club Can Help
BU’s Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences Toastmasters chapter helps students become more confident and articulate in front of a crowd
Excerpt from BU Today | By: Amy Laskowski | April 23, 2025 | Photo: Cydney Scott
Roughly one-third of American adults say they fear public speaking more than insects, needles—even murder. For Sarah Rashed, standing in front of a crowd wasn’t something she hated, but wasn’t something she relished either. She felt fairly confident in high school, but once she arrived at college and the opportunities for talking before a group became fewer, her confidence began to fade.
“I was noticing in classes where I had to present, I would just lock up and get super anxious,” Rashed (CDS’26) says. “I’d go blank.”
Last year, she spotted a poster at the Duan Family Center for Computing & Data Sciences for its new Toastmasters club. It promised to help students improve their public speaking skills and become more confident, articulate, and influential speakers. She decided to check it out, and quickly became a member.
Her off-the-cuff elevator pitch about why you should join: “You’re going to have to talk to people whether you like it or not. You’re going to have to present your ideas and articulate what’s going on in your head. It’s very important to know how to say something confidently so people are interested in the content of what you’re saying, versus not understanding what you mean because you are nervous or anxious.”
The group, an affiliate of the nonprofit Toastmasters International, is sponsored by CDS, which means the school covers the membership dues for its students; other BU students are welcome to join, but must pay the fee themselves. The club meets weekly and offers a structured yet supportive environment for students to sharpen their public speaking, communication, and leadership skills. Members can also earn certifications to include on their résumés.
The CDS Toastmasters club was founded in 2024 by Tanima Chatterjee, a CDS clinical assistant professor of computing and data sciences and director of undergraduate studies. A former member of the Toastmasters chapter at the University of Illinois Chicago, where she earned her PhD, Chatterjee says that while she was a confident speaker before joining the group, she felt she needed more practice since she is not a native English speaker (her native languages are Hindi and Bengali).