Leadership & Development
- Where I've Been
- Where I am Now
- Where I'm Going
- Recommended Readings
Involvement Experiences
- Leadership Roles
- Academic Courses
- Out-of-Class Learning
- Work Experiences
The past five years have been the most rewarding and the most challenging times of my life. During these years, I've faced challenges in my personal life from the divorce of my parents and my father's remarriage to deciding where the next chapter of my life where occur at. My professional life has faced similar challenges from what I want to be when I grow up to how much I take on professionally. These challenges were met with several great rewards, from working with great advisors, meeting great new friends, and seeing my peers grow and develop with me.
One of the biggest challenges that I've faced these past five years, which I feel is a trap many students fall into, is being over involved. When I arrived on campus, I wanted to get involved in something (which turned out to be my hall organization), but soon started doing everything I could get my hands on. I was attending meetings across campus and wearing myself out. This burnout took its course a few years in the fall, but was recovered over the course of time. I don't look at this over involvement as a negative experience, for I've truly enjoyed the things I've done, rather a challenge that I had to overcome. It took me a long time to learn to say no to things, which was really hard at first, but had to be done for the sake of my personal/professional life. This challenge took a toll on those around me as I became stressed or wasn't able to commit much time to them. People became prioritized within the groups and some were left behind. This loss of friends didn't take a major toll in the long run of my college life, because I was constantly meeting new friends.
On a lighter note, one of my greatest strengths that I'm able to pull from my past five years is my diverse breadth of experiences. Academically I started as a computer science and German major, now I'm ending up as a Theatre and Drama student. I've worked with fine art majors to engineers, people from across the world of a multitude of diverse backgrounds, people from small and large institutions, the list goes on. The content of my experiences has been from residence life to leadership development, with the chance to learn a bit about the admissions process and Greek affairs on a large campus. I'm truly appreciative for all the opportunities I've had. I've really enjoyed being able to work with full-time professionals and be treated like a professional in the tasks/groups I've been involved in. The combination of all these experiences has given me some of the greatest rewards I could ever ask for, both personally and professionally. I've used these rewards to continue to give back to campus and the world through my continued involvement in NACURH and other organizations.