Mitchell: Meet Margaux Jurgensen

Margaux Jurgensen is a senior in the Integrated Marketing Communications program at Ole Miss and the only undergraduate that competed and placed in the Speaker’s Edge Program during the 2014 Winter Intersession.

The Speaker’s Edge Program is a very prestigious, two-week course offered during the Winter Intersession and is taught by Professor JoAnn Edwards. An undergraduate and graduate level course is normally offered, depending on the interest and enrollment, complete with world-class industry professionals as judges and speech coaches.

Margaux Jurgensen happened to be one of the few undergraduates that signed up for the course, but Professor Edwards had her moved to the Graduate level course. She was a bit intimidated by this gesture, but took the opportunity with a headstrong and positive attitude, whereas she went on to place second in the ‘Ethical Dilemmas’ portion of the competition and was the fourth quarterfinalist for the ‘Informative Speeches.’ Jurgensen and the other participants were only given thirty minutes to prepare their speech for the ‘Ethical Dilemmas’ portion of the course.

When asked how she felt about her participation, Jurgensen commented that, “I did it to better myself, because I want to be the best speaker I can be in my future career.”

She also said, “The Speaker’s Edge Program was the best course I’ve taken at the University of Mississippi, hands down. I would highly suggest anyone else to take it, just go for it.”

The School of Business Administration sponsors the Speaker’s Edge annually along with the University of Mississippi and it is open to any student at the University that is interested in participating. Every student competes in three events during the course and prepares speeches, whereas the top choices are picked by the judges for each. The three portions of the competition include the following: ‘Informative’, the ‘Marketplace pitch’, and the ‘Ethical Dilemmas.’ The actual competition is on the last two days of the final and second week of the course and the top six participants are given awards, and the overall winner of Speaker’s Edge is named.

To see some of her firsthand experiences with the program, watch the video below:

Congratulate Margaux herself at mgjurgen@go.olemiss.edu and we look forward to hearing about her future achievements!

Samantha Mitchell is a staff writer at HottyToddy.com and can be reached at smitche3@go.olemiss.edu.