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Strengths and Self-Discovery

Since I am on the road to becoming a young professional, I am learning every day. Not only do I absorb my classroom material, but I also learn about myself. Through my experience, I gained a clearer understanding of my inborn talents that I’ve shaped into “strengths.”

What are your top 5 strengths? According to the Gallup StrengthsFinder Assessment, my top strengths are:

  • Woo (Winning Others Over): natural communicative abilities that allow others to feel comfortable after an initial meeting
  • Individualization: finding the individual characteristics of each person that make them a valuable asset to others
  • Communication: easily being able to break apart ideas to others and write in a fluid, engaging way
  • Belief: having a strong sense of “ground,” or faith, that drives actions
  • Responsibility: pertaining to a strong sense of duty

How do you see those playing a role in your current life? In your academics? I feel that my strengths frequently guide my life. I get a thrill from having someone who was originally “closed off” to open up. When I was young, I was the most social one out of my immediate family. There’s a story my mother tells me of going the the Newport Aquarium as a toddler: my family was getting tired and wanted to leave. However, as the elevator slid open, I stared at the crowded room of people and candidly shouted, “Hi, everyone!” Everyone in the elevator smiled and laughed, which relieved my family’s exhausted tension. Regarding “individualization,” I enjoy giving encouragement to friends, family, and even complimenting strangers. I deeply feel that everyone is valuable and deserves to know it often, which combines with my “belief” trait. Next, I utilize “communication” in my volunteer writing position at the National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation (NOAH: www.albinism.org). Every three months since 2012, I write articles on varying topics, including accessible technology, albinism news, and living with albinism. I love combining similes, imagery, nouns, and verbs into something exciting, beautiful, and even educational.

Academically, I heavily use “responsibility” by investing myself in schoolwork. I find I am a good initiator at group discussion, allowing us to conduct productive meetings. Also, it is easy for me to find where each person could contribute based on their particular talents and interests. When it comes to presenting, I enjoy the challenge of captivating the audience. Recently, I surprised one of my teammates after a presentation for my Fundamentals of Engineering course, who said, almost shocked, “Wow, you did really good!”

How does knowing your strengths support or change your thoughts about your future goals? Initially, my top four strengths were surprising and even somewhat disappointing: as a prospective engineer, I hoped to have traits such as, “ideation,” “achiever,” or, “strategic,” easily definable as a “typical engineer.” Yet as I continued to mull over my results, I came to accept them as who I was. Though “typical” engineers may not be thought of as social or great communicators, I am happy to be an “outlier,” so to speak. I feel that my social traits allow me to contradict the “engineer” stereotype, enhancing the discipline as one of diverse humans.

How might you utilize your strengths to achieve your future personal and/or professional goals? As I’m on the road to become a computer science engineer, I feel I can effectively communicate ideas, feeling strongly that they are so, convincing others of its prospect, and carry it out. I believe my diverse skill set could be an asset to a future employer, allowing me to achieve many functions.

Personally, however, I know my skills are meant for me. Since I have a rare form of albinism with associated health conditions, my communication skills can be used to win over the doctors and researchers who could potentially find us a cure. I feel it is my responsibility to advocate for myself and my friends with this syndrome to have a future worth fighting for.

Welcome to my Honors & Scholars Journey!

Thank you for visiting my blog!

I intentionally named this ePortfolio “Cassandra’s Trails and Trials” for a variety of reasons, but mainly because I love running. In high school, I ran cross country for five years, and it taught me a great deal about life. Winning the “race” is unnecessary as long as you enjoyed following new paths to adventure. You will stumble at some point; and, though you can never control the elements, you can change your perspective by using them to your advantage.

This portfolio seeks to do just that: highlight my experiences in STEM Exploration and Engagement Scholars; my time at Ohio State; and refine my sketch of my future goals. As a first year Computer Science & Engineering student, I seek to employ the G.O.A.L.S. of the Honors & Scholars program to make me more employable. Throughout this race, I hope to try different “paths,” finding one which couples my desire to encourage other minorities and make the world a more efficient place through technology. I will be documenting Artifacts (symbols) that have contributed to bends in my paths. Towards the end of the year, I will reflect on what I have learned, taking in the scenery of where I have ended up, but setting new goals for the year ahead. Please leave me comments and enjoy the journey!

About Me

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My name is Cassandra Mendez, and I’m currently a freshman at the Ohio State University on track to study Computer Science and Engineering enrolled in STEM Exploration and Engagements Scholars. I consider myself a reliable, responsible, and positive individual. I value empathy, efficiency, and making a difference in others’ lives. I’m currently a freshman at the Ohio State University, on track for studying Computer Science and Engineering enrolled in STEM Exploration and Engagements Scholars.

Although I’ve always been interested in science and mathematics, I began to develop a passion for efficiency and problem-solving. The pinochle of my personal “STEM Exploration” was while taking an HTML course as a freshman in high school. I found the concept of code fascinating: I had the power to create something beautiful, practical, and beneficial to others by simply typing at my computer and pouring over code and syntax. Though it was not always easy, often requiring seemingly endless editing, I continued trying and researching until I achieved my goal. This class drove me to pursue CS&E as a potential career, by which I learned Visual Basic, some MATLAB, and even some LSL (Linden Scripting Language, similar to C).

While technology is an evolving field, one may wonder, “What drove you to such passion?” As a person with a rare disease/disability, I feel driven to help others like myself. Learning to advocate for myself early on, I’m very outgoing and am not usually intimidated by connecting with strangers. Having also spent much time in hospitals, I’ve grown to enjoy children, knowing that early encouragement in anything, be it positive or negative, plants a “seed” within them. By this token, encouraging youth to experiment in STEM fields by removing ambiguousness and assisting academically will lead to growth in the field as well as in the person, which is why STEM EE Scholars was a perfect fit for me. I also want to develop as a student by meeting others with similar interests and as a professional by learning about career options.

By joining STEM EE Scholars, I know my time at THE Ohio State University will be filled with friends, fun, growth, and enrichment that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me!
GO BUCKS!