The lesson in strengths was both beneficial, yet a bit disheartening as well. Four out of my top strengths were in the strategic thinking category, and one was in the executing category. While I think these strengths: context, input, intellection, learner, and responsibility do encompass different highlights of my character, the way in which the strengths were discussed discouraged me to pursue areas in which I was weaker.  I completely understand the idea of positive psychology in trying to enhance what you’re good at, but I do not agree that we should, as the speaker said, disregard our weaknesses. This makes no sense. This thinking discourages initiative in students and should thus this should not be taught to forget about them. Weaknesses should be built upon using your strengths. Why get better at something that you already thrive in? It makes much more sense to me to use your strengths to enhance your weaknesses. With this in mind, I also don’t think that I am only defined by my top five strengths. For example, in high school I was my class president for all four years. Based on my strengths however, I would not be good at this leadership role because I did not place in any strengths in the influencing or the relationship building categories. While knowing my strengths are important, I do not believe that they should be the defining characteristics of who I am as a student.

“My happiest moment was in my junior year we were doing the musical production Legally Blond. I had wanted to pursue musical theater at this point so I was obviously going for a large role. I put all my time and effort into auditioning for the role of Paulette. I remember the cast list going up and being really nervous and walking over to it and just scanning down it and seeing that I got Paulette, and I just immediately started crying like tears of joy. I know it sounds really lame, but that was definately my happiest moment.”