Senior Year of AST

In October 2014, I joined Alpha Sigma Tau. As older post read, I have had many memories and experiences with this organization. I have held a number of leadership positions and have served on executive board twice. After eight semesters in a chapter that feels like home, there hasn’t been a day that I regret joining this chapter and community. It has pushed me to hold many roles in the Greek Community and around campus. I have met so many amazing sisters who have encouraged me to be my unapologetic self and I am very thankful for that. In my time in AST, we have done so many amazing things as a chapter that I am so proud to be apart of. We have held the highest sorority cumulative GPA since I have joined, won Greek Week twice, raised about $4,000 a year for Pine Mountain Settlement school, sent a group of sisters to volunteer at our national philanthropy every year, have every sister involved in at least one other RSO on campus, had the highest volunteer hours per sister in a long time, and improved member retention. I have been so proud of the accomplishments we have has. My learning experiences in this chapter has been beyond what has been in any other organization.  I have learned how to be self motivated to balance my social life, academics, and school involvements. I have learned time management to balance my involvements with my personal life. I have learned confidence from the affirmation of succeeding in my positions and following in the footsteps of our older members. Overall, this organization has given me so much and I’m glad I  have gotten the opportunity to give back to it.

 

Safari: Take Four

As said in previous blogs, I have been involved in a program called Leadership Safari at my university. During my first year, I came in as a freshman and was a participant. My sophomore and junior year, I have been a guide for incoming students. This year was the most special year for me. I got to serve as a ranger guide for this program. With that title, it meant that I have had experience with this program and I would be an assistant to the core guide for guide training and selection. I was placed on a team called Bubba Gump Shrimp Pink…which sounds just as goofy as it was. I got the opportunity to be paired with my best friend as my core guide and some of my closest friends has been from this group. I thought as a 3rd year guide, I didn’t have much more to learn from the program, but I was definitely wrong. I learned more from my group of participants this year than I ever thought I would. More than ever, I learned how to be patient with a group of people in a different way than being patient for a group such as my sisters. After growing my self confidence and comfort within groups throughout my college experience, I forgot how it felt to be an incoming freshman new to this environment. There were many instances where we went off curriculum and I had to make things up as I went. This group of students challenged how I think about social issues and how I follow the rules. By the end of the week, I knew that this was something I valued so much within my college career.

Panhellenic Council

Over the past two years, I have had the opportunity to serve on the Panhellenic Council Executive Board as VP of Administration and now Executive Vice President. This board oversees the sorority side of the Greek Community. It consists of 11 positions of women from different chapters from our campus. In my current position of EVP, I have many roles I need to fulfill. The main part of my position is that I look over all chapter representatives and liaison positions as well as being the right hand women to the president. I have learned how to effectively communicate with women in different organizations other than my own as well as ensuring they are in the light on all events we have going on as a community.With the liaison positions, I have had to figure out the most efficient way to fill positions with the best position holder. Along with the responsibilities of those, I am in charge of the legislative and judicial parts of this council. With that, I have learned that the best way to look at bylaws and potential changes is to have meetings with the chapter representatives to hear their voices on behalf of their chapters and make appropriate changes from there. The most challenging part of this position has been the judicial side. There have been many instances where I need to seperate my friend side from my professional side in order to properly go through judicial hearings. Overall with this position, I have learned that the most important part is the teamwork within this council. We have had many obstacles to overcome from what media portrays from internal concerns. Without coming together and working off of each others strengths, we would not have been as successful as we have been.

 

Class Protocol Reflection

Through our psychology course (PSY 100L) I learned that how we are leaders is all in our brains. That can be from being born with traits, learning them on the way, or a mixture of both. There is different stages in our lives where we develop different parts in our brains that makes us the leaders we are today. Outside the course material in the class, my cohort learned how to study as a class a make lectures more enjoyable. If it wasn’t for random dancing and singing before tests, then I think the stress would have overcome me.

In our debate course (COM 267L) I learned a lot about how to make people think a certain way and how to express why the way I believe is the correct way actually is. I also learned how different methods of argumentation are used to make the other person look bad instead of supporting my case. Over all, I learned that I need to be able to back up my side with facts and show the other side why my side may be the better option. We debate in our everyday lives and I feel as this is a very valuable class to have. We got to debate against other students in our cohort which got really interesting. We laughed and gasped at each others’ debates but over all bonded while doing it. We could not get that from just a normal debate class.

Overall, I am glad that we got to take these courses as a cohort. We learned that we can’t always have each other there in every class, but for the classes that we do we have valuable resources. I hope to make even a small portion of the connections in my other class as I do these leadership offerings.