Hi guys,

I'm in my first year of a PhD. I've done a few presentations in the past 7 months, but it's been difficult as I have severe social anxiety.

Now I know everyone gets a bit nervous before presenting but I have severe social anxiety issues in life, not just with presenting. So when I have to present it just makes my anxiety a million times worse. I actually have to go to the bathroom to throw up days before just from thinking about it & getting stressed.

This year I've to take a training class. In the class the course co-ordinater has us presenting on this that and everything. I've made the effort to do them all so far (with a lot of stress and anxiety!) but now this term he has us doing even more! I know that people say the more you do it the easier it gets, but that's just not true for me. Every week now I get anxious & stressed thinking about this training class. I literally can't sleep at night. I am sick regularly from the nerves in my stomach.

My question is, to what extent can a university/course/supervisor force me to present?

Please know that I'm well aware that I need to present my thesis/results/etc at conferences & other events to disseminate - that's not what I'm talking about here.Conferences etc that are relevant to my work/field I can cope with and know that these are times I need to suck it up for the benefit of my PhD output.But I'm talking about being pressured into presenting and doing meaningless talks every week for one of these crummy training courses I've been forced to take this year as part of my PhD training. Can 'they' (the university or course trainer) force me to do this each week? This is literally eating me up! I sit every day consumed by anxiety, fear and stress thinking about what this course teacher will have us presenting on next.