Volunteering at Preschool

I would like to share is my experience volunteering with Precious Ones Learning Center. All through high school and continuing in college (while home for breaks), I volunteer(ed) at the preschool and daycare through my church. The experience has been both rewarding and educational, as I have learned a good deal about state bureaucracy, finances, lesson planning, time management, and, of course, caring for children. Over the summers, I would supervise the children at the Kettering Recreation Center pool, and during the school year and over breaks this year I have worked directly in the classrooms with students who require more help than just one teacher can provide. I work on special projects as well as menial tasks like coping and cleaning. My job for the day depends on the needs of the center. This job has taught me LOTS of patience, organization, leadership, and (most importantly in my opinion) the ability to teach (and reteach, and reteach…) something to a student who has a hard time understanding the topic. This has forced me to think about things in a different way and has expanded my ability to “put myself in someone else’s shoes,” which has greatly helped me transition to OSU and to understand the new friends I am making. This experience has also presented me with a job opportunity, as I recently turned 18 and am now able to be hired as an assistant teacher. It has rounded out my resume as well as taught me skills and formed my character, which will affect my career in positive ways.

High School Yearbook

Though this artifact originated in high school, it has led to my love for design and writing in college. It has led me to create a private blog and revamp my resume. It has given me market experience selling ads to local and national businesses and working directly with Jostens representatives, leadership experience in creating the theme for the book and organizing everyone else’s sections around that theme, and creative experience both writing and designing that led me to want to continue both designing and writing. It also taught me how to time manage, as pages were due in huge groupings and it was the editor’s responsibility to stay on track. Overall, it was a very rounding experience for my character, my patience, my creativity, and my work ethic. My co-editor-in-chief and I created the theme for the whole book, “then & now,” which can be seen on the cover and end pages:

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We were also in charge of our own sections of the book, the opening and closing:

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And finally, my favorite, the pages that divided the other sections and carried the many elements of the theme throughout the book:

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Every year, our director enters the book in 3 national competitions and 1 state-wide competition. Our book won:

The “second” honor rating in the National Scholastic Press Association Competition

Gold medal in the Columbia Scholastic Press Association Competition

First place ranking with outstanding marks in theme, reader services, coverage, and leadership from the Ohio Scholastic Media Association

And most impressive, first place with a perfect score in creativity from the American Scholastic Press Association.

I loved every minute of working with my team, and I feel this experience and the many skills I learned will lend itself for years to come.

 

Intelligence Community of Europe

This year, as one of my major projects for my Introduction to Intelligence class, I chose to research the Intelligence Community of Europe and the main challenges it faces both internally and externally. First, I researched the different levels of the Intelligence Community and how information becomes intelligence that countries and law enforcement are able to use. I learned a lot about the differences between the ways Europe and the U.S. respond to issues within Europe. I also learned about how the intelligence community is affected by budget and other internal regulations imposed by government.

This project was important to my college career because it was assigned in the style of an intelligence report. According to my professor, this is a short, more general form of what intelligence analysts do and the reports they provide to people like the president. This is what I would like to do in the future, so it was eye opening to have the process taught by someone who has practiced it and then go through the motions myself. Obviously, and unfortunately, I did not have access to the information t0 which analysts have access, but I was still able to go through the motions of putting together a portfolio of information regarding the Intelligence Community in Europe. The below attachment is one part of the portfolio: the overview.

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