This past year has been an eye-opening experience for me that has taught me so much and helped me evolve. Even though my year in Mount Leadership got cut short by the situation going on in the world, I was still able to gain so much from my Scholars program. There are many areas of my life such as being a student, leader, and community member where I have improved over the year.
As a student I have taken classes where the rigor has been higher than I have experienced before coming to college. I have learned new time management skills that have allowed me to complete all of my schoolwork and still have time to spend with my friends and doing other activities. I have tried over the year to better focus my time on tasks that are easy to complete first to decrease the amount of work I have to complete. I have also learned through Mount that the things you do should be something you are passionate about. For this reason, I have tried to take classes that peak my interest and are something I genuinely want to do.
As a leader I have grown a lot as well, especially by learning how to become a better leader through Mount. Before joining Mount and coming to college, in my various activities I didn’t usually organize projects ad I didn’t try to actively take on leadership roles. My goal this year was to put myself in situations that were different and try to learn how to be a better leader. I wanted to gain more confidence in taking a lead on projects. Throughout this year, I had the opportunity to help be more involved in the planning process of projects in Mount. For example, I was a member of Summit Committee, which was a committee that planned a leadership event for my scholars program. Furthermore, as a member of Mount, I participated in Legacy Week, which is where each first year in Mount helps plan and create various service projects to help a social issue in the Columbus community. As a leader for my team, I helped my team plan two environmental events in Columbus. I learned how to manage a team and communicate effectively with different types of people to get a shared goal completed. These opportunities in Mount were imperative for me to develop my leadership skills.
Through these experiences, I have also gained a lot of confidence to put my leadership skills in other areas of my college experience. During second semester, I became a Chemistry Teaching Assistant, which was another opportunity for me to develop my leadership skills during my first year. I have been able to lead and teach a lab to a large group of students and learn how to help students who need different things. I felt like this experience has benefited my communication skills and ability to think outside of the box. I have been able to learn the best ways to help others based on their needs and to always be sure I am thinking about what they need. This sentiment is also applicable to my community leadership/participation. Through Mount, I learned that it is important to look for what the community needs not what you want to do for the community. This impacted me a lot because throughout the year I have participated in community events and saw how intentional they were in meeting the needs of the community. I learned as a community member to help those with their specific needs.
This year has taught me a lot and made me evolve as a person. I am excited to continue to develop and grow more next year during my second year in college and as a member of Mount Leadership Society.