Peer Mentor Panel

This last week we had a peer mentor panel come into our class. I thoroughly enjoyed getting our questions answered by this panel because even though two of the panel members are peer mentors with us, it really allowed us to have time to specifically put them in the position to give us the advice we needed! I had feelings throughout the semester that I was maybe not prepared for this role but after last week and coming to the realization that it is the end of the semester I am definitely feeling more prepared. Even if I wasn't, I would have to get over it, because it's coming up quick and we can't stop it! Haha.

The best advice I think I had taken out of this was to take pictures and document the entire semester. I know that our section got along very well when we were freshmen and there are only a couple of people I see out of that section and out of all the fun times we had, we only had three pictures from the entire semester. I was also glad to hear the previous mentors talk about their co-leader routines and how they prepared for classes. I would have never thought of using a spreadsheet for the grading and tracking of our student's so I'm super glad they told us about those techniques. I am also glad that they had told us about how they went about meeting up with their co-leaders in order to plan the lesson plans for each week. This panel really gave us some valuable information that we didn't have before talking to them and I am glad we sat through it.

Having the panel come in was very beneficial. It definitely made me feel as though I was much more prepared after listening to them as I was before they had come.

Diversity Event - Redefining Hip Hop Culture with Mc Lyte

This blog post is wayyyyyyy over due being that the diversity event took place on February 28th, but I just kept forgetting. Surprisingly I have remembered some key interesting things from this diversity event and I think the fact that they have stuck with me from February until now really says something about the content of this diversity event. At first I was a little nervous because I wasn't really sure of what to expect, but I am so glad I chose this event to attend because I had a blast. The atmosphere in general was just amazing because we were dancing, singing, and carrying on conversations with random strangers before it even started! This atmosphere was carried out through the entire session.

Mc Lyte was the speaker at this event and she is a female hip hop artist. Her raspy voice had a sweet tune to it even when she was just talking, but not only would she talk to us, as soon as she had some important she wanted us to really take in she put it into a song. The rhythms her words came across seemed to strike us in a way that made us really key into what she was saying which was interesting because one would think putting it into a song would muffle the words and their meaning. I learned the importance of spoken word from some friends we had met, and I find myself partaking in it now throughout my life. Mc Lyte really focused on leadership, and seeing the potential in yourself that no one else may see. She also said that you have to prepare for your future because you never know when the moment may present itself and it may never come again so you have to be prepared for anything!

I was really glad that I chose to attend this diversity event because it allowed me to partake in a culture that I didn't know too much about. It was awesome though because I absolutely loved the entire thing! :D

Peer Mentors in College Society

Even though this chapter was a little tough to plan a lesson around I think we still benefited greatly from it. I think that talking about our major roles as peer mentors and how peer mentors affect student's lives really puts into perspective the situation we have all agreed to be placed in. Not only that, but it is also a good wrap up for all of the information we have been given over the semester in order to prepare us for this fall.

Being a peer mentor is not just being a role model; it is about creating quality relationships that truly add value to both your life and the life of your mentee. In my own experiences I have not really had a bad experience with a peer mentor, but the peer mentors I had as a freshman coming in to Iowa State were the two most empowering people I know. They made me want to be a better student, made me want to go to class, and even made me want to make friends. Having peer mentors like them is the exact reason I wanted to become a peer mentor myself in this program. From this experience I want to build long lasting relationships and I want to make the same positive impact on their lives as I had received as a freshman.

There are so many personality traits and values that can make a peer mentor successful and to me being personable, honest, and available are some of the upmost important aspects I value. I am hoping that by putting these values as a priority that I will be able to make the positive impact I am wanting to.

Ethics, in business. Is. Uhh. Business Ethics.. is....

"Mr. Gordan, Explain business ethics and how they are applied today."           https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRT62J80iyI

Whenever the word ethics comes up I always immediately begin to think of the part of Billy Madison where Mr. Gordan goes crazy because he can't answer a question about how business ethics are applied in today's society. It may be just because of this movie that the word ethics can be intimidating to me at times. After our class on Thursday I don't think it is as intimidating as I had pictured it to be before, because, I can now see that it isn't just a term used in only the business world. Ethics can be applied in our everyday lives because it is just simply the rules of conduct or a system of morals. Learning the actual definition of ethics really made me understand how common the word is which led it to be more applicable to my life. 

I am really glad that we used what we had talked about in regards to ethics and the Hixson program in order to create our pledge for quality service because it will allow us to always have guidelines to help us make our decisions in the future. This pledge will also encourage us to find ways that we can better serve and promote the Hixson name as well as our own. There were many good ideas brought up to be put on this pledge, and those good ideas lead us to think about situations in which our ethics will be tested. Situations such as: being asked to purchase alcohol, pregnancy scares, illegal activities, and even relationships within the sections as well as relationships between mentors or mentors and students. 

These are all hard situations to talk about. It does make it easier when we talk about them now in order to help us prepare for what we might need to do if we were to encounter these situations in the future, but at the same time, I don't think that talking through the situations will necessarily prepare us for the actual event. It is easy to talk through a situation but when you are actually placed in it sometimes it is not always easy to sit down, and work through it. In the end when these situations arise in the fall with our students, we will just need to keep in mind our pledge for quality service while trying to make decisions on how to deal with the situation. Along with the pledge, we also need to keep in mind how we are representing the Hixson program, ourselves, and our mentees when trying to make a decision. IN the end I think that working together as a team of 16 that we will be able to achieve and power through whatever situation we encounter, because as a whole we all have great sets of morals, if not, we probably wouldn't be where we are today. 

Kudos for being awesome and having standards! :) 

Resources and Referrals

Before Thursday's class I thought I had known a decent amount about our campus resources that are available for our use. After Thursday's class I realized I was wrong! Haha. Although I had known of the main resources like the Student Health Center, Career Services, Student Services, Academic Success Center, Writing Center, etc. I didn't realize how much was included inside all of these services. I had only really known the main ones I have used in the last couple years, but I am glad that we talked about many other resources not all of us normally think of right away such as the Multicultural Center, or the women's center. This allowed me to understand what resources might be of use to someone else who may be in need of those specific services. It is important to know all of these to better serve our mentees.

One thing that I also found very useful was the how to refer and when to refer discussions. I had not known this information before this unit but once again it is valuable information that we all need to know as peer mentors. Our mentees will have to feel like they are able to come to us with any situation they are presented with and it is our job to know how to help them out. Not only do we have to know where to send them in order to get the best advice but we need to be able to recognize when we can no longer help them and who actually can. One of the most important things we discussed was showing respect towards our mentees. By this I mean helping them find where to go to solve their problems but also nudging them in the right direction and not doing it for them. Coming to college is a big change in responsibility and sometimes it makes you feel almost older then you really are for all of the responsibilities you now have to take care of on your own. This being said, I truly believe that they need to learn how to take care of things on their own with the guidance of others so they can really learn how to live life and take responsibility over their own life. Yes we still do need to guide them in the right direction but it is also important to let them take the wheel and drive their life where it needs to go.

For the blogging prompt I chose to use the situation with Rachel and not knowing how much to take out in loans and/or how to budget for the upcoming semester. I would say this has a medium urgency rating because although it is not as high as self harm it is pretty important and needs to be taken care of as soon as possible so she has enough money to register for classes and also has enough time to find a job if needed. To further understand the situation I could ask what loans she has already taken out and if she knows how to take them out, if she knows what loans she qualifies for, and if she already has a budget that she is currently using. When needing to make a referral to her because according to the situation I am not completely knowledgeable on the help she is needing I would refer her to the Financial Counseling Services. I would sit down with her and say that I understand the frustrations she is going through and I want to help her in the best way possible which is why I would like to refer her to the FCS because I know they will be able to give her the best help, and that I know some professors there who could help her! To build up their confidence to use the FCS I would hand her brochures from the place and maybe tell her a little bit more of what to expect when going there and also give her contact information of people there so that she feels extra comfortable with the situation and is willing to go. Personalizing the situation I feel as if I would have already done by giving her the contact information of the professors I know as well as helping her find out the information and letting her know what to expect from the process; I would also keep it personal by following up with her about a week later to see how the process is going and figure out if she has followed through with her plans. I would continue with these follow ups until I knew she was sitting in a good understanding with her financial issues/frustrations. 

External vs. Internal Motivation

At first I thought that the birthday card activity was just kind of a way for us to help learn how we affect others through our actions but after participating it was so much more than that. This activity was sort of a light bulb moment for me because I realized that I am truly driven by external motivation. I do have some sort of internal motivation in taking action to get what I want from life but at the same time for homework, studies, and some daily life tasks I realize that my environment really has a lot of effect on my motivation towards that. It does make me wonder though, where our preference for external or internal motivation comes from. At first I had thought that maybe it had something to do with being an extravert because being such a social person can allow you to possibly feed off of others as your motivation and since Sam and I had felt the same way I had begun to that maybe that was related in some way. Looking back I think its more of a correlation not a causation because, I believe Katie was also an extravert but she had a preference for internal motivation. This is a question that maybe I would like to do a little more research on. Any ideas?

Finding out that I am motivated by external factors really allowed me to be able to make sense of my last couple years at Iowa State. I always loved life here in Ames, and I felt like it was my home away from home which is the exact reason why I wanted to stay, but I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I am generally a good student but when I am studying things I have no interest in or don't want to be studying, my lack of motivation really goes out the window and I lose all sight of related goals. So for me switching majors left and right really made me feel like I had made a decision that might not have been right for me even though I love Iowa State. I had always wanted to do nursing or something with that field but I had not pursued it because I knew I wanted to be at Iowa State and since there are so many majors at Iowa State I could find one that I would eventually like and could be happy with. I am still kind of in this struggle with what I want to do with my life but I know that whatever path I choose I am dead set on graduating at Iowa State. Honestly speaking, if it wasn't for Debra, Allie, and Chelsee I probably would have left at the end of my freshmen year here. I am glad I didn't but it's hard for me to go through all of these motions without having an ending goal besides graduating of course.

Recently I have decided that after college and once I get things settled in, I would like to become a part time EMT and eventually work my way up to being a paramedic along with a full time job I can hopefully receive after graduation. I would possibly like to be a full time paramedic but we'll see when the time comes because I firmly believe that everything happens for a reason. It is all apart of God's plan for us. :)

ISCORE

At the ISCORE conference held on March 7th, 2014 I had the opportunity to attend two sessions. The first was the luncheon including the keynote speaker, and the second was called "The Land before I'm: Winners Write History."

I would like to start off the first session with noting how delicious the food was. I wasn't entirely sure if I was going to appreciate the Native American themed dishes as much as I would have liked to but I absolutely LOVED IT. Anyway, we had the chance to listen to Harold L. Martin speak while practicing our fine etiquette skills. He spoke about where he had been in his life and all of the adversities he had to overcome in order to get where he was going. It was a very intriguing lecture that seemed to allow us as individuals realize how much we should appreciate all of things we take for granted in life and how not long ago we didn't have all of the rights we do today. There were a few quotes Harold had mentioned in which I really liked and will hopefully be able to add to my wall of quotes in my room.
       
         " Through our differences we make differences"
         " It is not where you're from or where you've been but where you're going and where you end"
         " You have absolutely no excuse not to give your best efforts towards success"

Although I did find some of these quotes very inspiring and relatable, there were a few others that were a little harder for me to relate to but they still spoke volumes. Harold spoke about being able to do whatever you want as good as anyone else can do even though you have a skin of color and also the importance of making your presence and success felt, because you are no one's project. I may not be able to completely relate to these specific topics because I may not have experienced situations in which this would completely be directed towards but as a mentor I would want my mentees to know this about themselves. I would want them to be able to realize that they can speak volumes on their own and do not have to work through these adversities because inside you they do not exist.

At "The Land Before I'm: Winners Write History" we learned about the history of our lands. Often when being taught history we tend to glorify the new settlers and what they did with the lands instead of realizing the harsh truths of what they had to do in order to achieve those lands. This lecture allowed us to understand the history of native american tribes that had been established in Iowa before being kicked out by early settlers. They endured many hardships and from this lecture I do believe that is important to teach our society today about what had really happened and how these tribes were lead to being separated and even diminished completely.

3/10 Thursday's Lecture and Sunday's Retreat

In our class on Thursday, Matt and Nicole gave a lecture on how to lead groups effectively. Although I am kind of sad that we didn't get to do the jelly bean activity because I am sure it would have been very interesting to see how increasing the number of ideas, guesses, and people in our group correlated to how close of a guess we had, I thoroughly enjoyed the activity we had done. It is always excellent to receive practice on real life situations that we may come across next year and how we can solve these problems we encounter.

On the retreat on Sunday Sam and Brooke lead a lecture on goals and always keeping a positive look at things whether they be your goals or just situations you happen to be dealing with in everyday life. I really liked our activity with the situational strips requiring us to turn a not so good situation into a positive goal and then onto a SMART goal from there. This activity allowed us to really focus on always keeping a positive look at situations because honestly we have so much to be grateful for and I think that we sometimes lose sight of how good we really do have it until such activities are done. Once done with our own, allowing us to open our situation to the group really enforced how increasing more people in a group can help give more accurate and descriptive solutions or ideas like Matt and Nicole had discussed on Thursday.

Also at the retreat on Sunday we had the second half of icebreakers. I was really impressed with the uniqueness of everyone's icebreakers because many of them I had never done before which is refreshing since a lot of people tend to use the same icebreakers losing their effectiveness and funness (thats not a word...). Even though I loved all of the icebreaker activities I exceedingly enjoyed Kayla's because it allowed us to really connect with each other on a level in which we hadn't gotten to know each other yet even though we feel as though we know each other well. It was very thought provoking and interesting to help learn other's backgrounds and I really liked it.

SoMe Week.

At the beginning of social media week I thought that the assignment of 20 tweets wasn't going to be a big deal. Turns out, I was wrong! I had a really rough time trying to tweet 20 solid, meaningful tweets because I just don't tweet as much as I thought I did. Although the tweeting aspect was rough I did thoroughly enjoy following accounts within my field of interests. Being involved in the lives of the big shots in my field allowed me to feel as though I was in the know on all of the issues currently being discussed/faced in my career. From this week I really gained the knowledge of how Twitter can actually be beneficial instead of another trash talking social media site being abused by teenagers.

Not only did I learn how beneficial it can be, but at the same time I also learned the importance of having a professional internet profile no matter what the site is. I have found that I am now looking at other's tweets from a professional stand point and I can't help but thinking, "what were they thinking?" I'm sure that I have had some questionable tweets and posts from back in my " I can post whatever I want I'm in college now" days but recently I have been trying to go back through to clean up those SoMe sites, profiles, and posts.

I think that as we are trying to express the importance of our social media accounts to our mentees that they might not understand the purpose or listen just because of the new to college and I can do what I want phase. It definitely takes some time to mature and realize the amount of hurt or awesomeness that can be given by such sites and that even though we will try our best to help, it might be something that they have to experience on their own to fully understand. Speaking from personal experience I know that I did LinkedIn because I thought that I didn't want any Hixsons seeing my twitter profile. There was seriously nothing wrong (that I can remember) with it but it just felt like I was being judged by what I was saying. It took until this year to realize that if I am uncomfortable with this group of 100 students and 3 directors reading my tweets why am I not concerned about the billions of people in the world that can read my tweets? It definitely took me becoming more serious about my career and future internships and jobs before the maturity sank in on my social media accounts.

Technology is a huge part of today's society and there is no way that we can stop it. Instead of being intimidated by the future and technology we need to embrace what it can provide us with in order to help better ourselves and the world around us. This being said, we also need to be careful because with so much technology every aspect of our lives is more vulnerable as it is thrown out there into the cyber world. I think it is a super important lesson to teach our mentees about as they are being introduced to a new world and lifestyle.

I almost forgot to talk about how much I thoroughly enjoyed Angie and Kira's lesson on group processes. I thought that the Lego activity was a great way for us to fully understand the essential parts to a group. It was definitely hard putting us into roles that we might not normally go into, but this is what made us learn so much from the activity. I hope that I can utilize this activity if not a similar one with my mentees next fall! Excellent job!

Communication.

I really enjoyed this week's topic of conversation. Being an extravert, open communication is something that I highly value. The activity we did where we played a peer mentor and a student was very beneficial because it allowed us to have some experience in this type of setting. What I mostly enjoyed about this activity was that the questions were not questions that could have been easily answered. It really made us think about the answers and connect with the student on a level that we might have not been at before. The situations we were given also made us broaden our horizons on whether we were best fit to answer that issue or if we needed to refer the student to someone else who could better help solve the problem. 

I also enjoyed the discussion we had comparing and contrasting advice giving and interpersonal communication. I had a good idea of how they were related but I was having a little difficulty contrasting the two. After the venn diagram activity, I strongly feel that I am capable of determining the difference between the two. If I had to choose between the two I think I definitely have a preference for interpersonal communication over advice giving. I say this because once again, having a personal preference for feeling, it is important to me to make those personal connections with people. Since interpersonal communication is highly based upon using energy and feelings to help connect with a person in order to help solve their problems this method of communication and problem solving fits best with my personal preferences according to the Meyers-Briggs Personality Test.

Hopefully next year I will be able to use this method of problem solving to assist at least one if not more freshmen through experiencing a "troublesome" period of their life. 

Ch. 3 Enhancing Cultural Proficiency

After our discussions in class last Thursday I went back into chapter 3 to do the blogging prompt activity on page 80. Here, factors that may contribute to your culture are listed and you are to pick a couple that you think have an influence on your life, but the one that I want to mainly focus on is tattoos.

I know that tattoos have become popular more recently and not everyone is for tattoos. Some believe that your body is a gift from god which is made perfect and to get tattoos is like disrespecting his gift and "saying" it's not perfect to you. Although I can relate to this view point and see where others are coming from I still appreciate what my tattoos have allowed me to do as a person.

I personally have three tattoos, while others may think that they are tacky, these tattoos are not just some random design thrown on my body due to a lost bet. They are an important piece of my life and looking at my body and seeing these tattoos is now who I am. They are a part of me. Every one of them has a specific meaning to me and they are daily reminders of who I am, where I have come from, the support system and strength I have which allows me to make it through difficult tasks as well as daily life.

When people ask me about my tattoos I love to explain why I have them and their meaning because it allows me to become more personable towards this person while discussing pieces of my life with them. I also feel that they are conversation starters! Haha. I'm not saying I need them in order to start a conversation (because we all know I can stir up a conversation from nothing!) but others who may not be as outgoing may see this as an opportunity for a good conversation. My tattoos allow me to really express who I am and to share my traits, qualities, and past with others.  Many people still might not be able to see their importance to me or why I did it, but to me they are a huge part of who I am and being able to share my stories with others may help them understand why my tattoos are of so much importance to me.

Couldn't Have Been More Accurate. MBTI II.

I was really shocked by the outcomes of this test because when reading through the information in our packet I really felt like someone who had known me my entire life sat down and wrote this packet on how I act and feel. I am an ESFP. Extraversion, sensing, feeling, and perceiving. After looking at the subcategories in each section, I feel very confident that this type speaks exactly who I am.

Extraversion:
All 5 of my facets under extraversion are all on my preference of extraversion. Not only are they on that side, but they are all way way way on the side of extraversion. I know many of you are probably thinking "haha, it took you long enough to figure that out!" but even though this is what I had known and probably realized I didn't know what it meant for my personality type and how I needed to embrace/change it. This being said, I do have preferences for people to genuinely interact and get to know each other, find it easy to express my feelings and interests, am easy to get to know, TALK A LOT!, dislike being alone, like being in groups, like to communicate face-to-face or voice-to-voice, learn better by doing, hearing, and asking questions than by reading and writing, I like being where the action is and I feel that life is meant to be exciting! Also I do have a problem of getting bored so I make things happen and try to engage others in activities.

Sensing:
Under the sensing category I did have a couple out of preference facets and when I look at them I can't help but laugh because I know they are all so true. I am not very concrete or realistic but I am abstract and imaginative. This meaning that I am curious about meaning and implications, I can over interpret facts and finding meaning that later proves to be unfounded, and notice details conscientiously but may sometimes find them irksome. I also like to apply my resourcefulness to specific problems but do not really enjoy imagination for its own sake. All of my other facets do fall within the sensing side of the category. Practical, experiential, and traditional were the last three and experiential and traditional pretty well top the charts. I learn best from direct hands on experiences, I focus more on past and present then the future and this may not always be a good thing! Traditional basically means that I really like to identify with what is familiar and I am very comfortable with things that are tried and true because I know what the outcome will be.

Feeling:
Empathetic, accommodating, accepting and tender were all the facets that were included in preference. Questioning on the other hand was out of preference but I think it really does apply well to my life. Empathetic basically means that I make all of my decisions based on the feelings of the group, and what their moods/reactions to decisions will be, and weigh positive and negative feeling of a situation in order to make a decision. Compassionate meaning that I trust my own values as a reliable basis for decision making and am in touch with both mine and others' feelings. I also am influenced by my likes and dislikes in decision making. The questioning part of me which was out of preference, means that I like to focus mostly around people and values and I use these questions to help draw out others' feelings. I can be skeptical, confrontational, and outspoken, but my questions are sometimes misinterpreted as oppositional or contentious even if I am not trying to make them come across that way. Having an in preference for accepting and tender allows me to focus on the good in people and situations but also expect others to respond with kindness. I also really genuinely want people to like me, I give others the benefit of the doubt, see lots of ways to arrive at an agreement and want everyone to feel good with end results!!

Perceiving:
For perceiving I did have one in the midzone and one out of preference facet. Systematic-casual was my midzone and this means that I like a general plan but find too much detail to be inhibiting, and I don't mind interruptions as long as I don't have an agenda in place to mess up. I am planful, but this is an out of preference facet. Being planful makes me prefer broad plans because I like to have general plan but work out the specifics on how to achieve it, and I use plans to provide directions but these plans have to be flexible to follow. My highest in preference is pressure-prompted. This means that time pressures do help me do better and I easily get bored when not doing something. I need to know just how late I can start to actually meet deadlines, even though this is a bad thing, on the bright side it does allow me to have excellent timing and some planning skills! Next is scheduled-spontaneous this means that I prefer to have a moderate amount of routine in my life because it can provide some predictability and ability to respond to some opportunities. This being said, I do appreciate a routine with work and school but at home a routine is confining and I like to be spontaneous. The last facet under Perceiving is emergent and this was an in preference fact. Being emergent means that I plunge in without detailed plans, I like to wait and see what happens, and then "wing it" which I often do in homework and I tend to operate in a non-linear way and am able to switch sides in mid-argument.

I am really glad we did this because I feel as though this report really fits my life to a t and I am curious in how I can use these facets to help fit my personality in with others and how I can modify my personality to work best with myself and others. Also, I would like to do more reading to understand how my best attributes can apply in my work and career path and what attributes need to be worked on or modified in order to be the best that I can be in my field.

Leadership. What does it take?

At first I was a little concerned about these two conferences. Not because I didn't want to go but because I was intimidated by the title of these opportunities. I was nervous about not being able to correctly contribute my thoughts to our discussions, but I knew that this was going to be beneficial even if I had just sat and listened.

Mid-Year Institute:

At the Learning Community Mid-Year Institute conference I attended two sessions. The first, called "Habits of Thinking", was a session in which we examined different traits thats are important for peer mentors to have and how we can incorporate those thinking habits into our daily lives to help improve our mentees. After lightly discussing all of the habits of mind that we had to choose from, our group decided to really focus on responding with wonderment and awe. I thought it was very interesting that out of empathy, communication, persistence, emotions, humor, creativity etc. that responding with wonderment and awe was the key one we wanted center. It also intrigued me because I found this one as a habit that most would not instantly think of when discussing leadership and mentees but after our discussion I realize that it is in fact very crucial.

To mean responding with wonderment and awe means that one is able to step back, just breathe, and really feel and take in all aspects and degrees of the situation in order to generate a truly empathetic response. Even if no response is needed I still feel that being able to just sit back and think about everything that has been accomplished that has made the current situation possible. This aspect is very important because it allows you as a mentor to see different perspectives of each and every situation. Having this habit allows you to stay humble and gives you the ability to utilize every one of your senses to fully experience and express the possibilities. In order to incorporate this into my everyday habits of thinking I would start by physically taking the time to just sit and think about how I got where I am and trying to include my senses in decision making allowing myself to stay humble and personable.

The second session I went to was purely on strengths. I had heard of this but wasn't entirely sure of what it consisted of, but I had learned that everyone has top 5 strengths that go along with their personalities and being able to make use of your strengths and they can interchangeably work with the strengths of others allows one to collaborate. When doing group activities it is important to have diversity within the group because having a lot of similarities might make an activity easier or better but it will not produce the best results. Knowing your own strengths allows you to also be able to find your role within a group setting and even using different strengths of yours to make the group more well rounded. I feel that I would like to find out my own strengths and learn how to fully utilize them myself.

I.S.L.E:

I was very fond of the keynote speaker at I.S.L.E and I actually enjoyed this conference a lot. I loved how he turned his key concepts into applications through showing us them in action in some of our favorite movies of today. He did leave me with a lot of quotes that I had written to always keep reminding myself of. In my apartment, I have a wall that is completely covered with a collage of quotes and he gave me so many that I will probably end up filling up the entire wall. Some of my most favorite are:

"Leaders don't wait for things to happen, they make it happen."
"In order to create harmony you have to have diversity."
"If two people are the exact same, one is unnecessary."
"Great leaders focus on the internal victories instead of the external rewards."
"Human Beings are just like wheel barrows, you only go as far as you're pushed."
"Give people room to fail, anything worth doing is worth doing badly until you get it right."

I have learned so much from him alone at this conference that I am very glad I decided to attend the keynote speaker. I will always keep my notes on how to be a good leader with me because reading them on a daily basis and seeing them often will put belief into my head that that is who I am. I also really wanted that book he was selling butt they ran out.. SHOOT!

After the keynote speaker, I attend the UZOO session. This session taught us about what personality type we are and how "predictable" our personality types can make our actions. First we tallied up our scores and then the highest 2 or 3 people from each type was sent out into the hallway where we had to come up with an event. Any event you could think of. Then while we were outside the students inside were being taught about what personalities will come up with which kind of event just because of the nature of the personalities. I found this to be super interesting because I didn't realize how predictable our actions really are and how we can accomodate our personalities with others.

Developmental Issues Concerning First Year Students.

This past week we discussed some common developmental issues that we may encounter while mentoring the incoming freshmen next year. I think that this general list we discussed is fairly accurate because I know that I myself had even went through some of these problems as a freshmen coming to college. Some of the concerns that I personally would feel as though I could answer decently well would be switching majors, not wanting to attend classes, and social life issues because these are some of the most prevalent topics I had gone through my freshmen year.

I came into Iowa State thinking I knew exactly what I wanted to do and when I got here I had been completely shocked when I had started classes and realized it was not what I wanted to do at all. I went through many career aptitude tests, personality tests, and countless meetings with advisors and mentors trying to figure out what I wanted to do and what I would be good at doing. This entire journey I went through lead me to where I am today and I think that without having to go through all of that I would not be as knowledgeable and useful in this area as I am. Many freshmen also go through the same concerns and I believe that I could be very helpful in this area. I am very confident that I can guide our mentees through these experiences to get them on the right path.

Even though I did eventually find out what I wanted to be doing, along the way I had to take a new orientation class with every time I had switched a major. These orientation classes get old the first time you take them let alone taking 3 or 4 different ones. Also, with them only being 1 credit and most times are just pass/fail I had a really hard time attending those classes. Eventually I worked through that and decided that I needed to attend because that was the only way I could pass those classes. Even though these classes were only one credit they still affected my GPA and I didn’t want to have on my record that I had failed a simple class leading to the belief that I didn’t even have the motivation to finish a simple class. This background history of attendance and I gives me a good stance in having to help other people with the same issues.

Also,  I think that I have a decent amount of experience with social issues that many incoming freshmen encounter. I came to Iowa State with a boyfriend of 3 years and all I wanted to do was spend time with him. After we broke up I broadened my horizons and went out and tried to meet as many new people as I could. While doing this I realized the importance of getting out and meeting people that you will actually form a life long bond with because you have so much in common. I think that I will be able to help anyone having problems with similar situations because I went through a lot of changes in my first year.

Thinking back on my first year here at Iowa State I know I did make a lot of mistakes but you can never learn from your mistakes if you don’t make them in the first place. I would like to use my new knowledge to help my mentees through the transition into college to give them the best possible experience!

  

A Little Bit About Me.

Hey guys! First off a little background on me, I grew up on a farm outside of Strawberry Point, Iowa. While growing up I was an avid athlete but I also loved showing beef cattle and riding horses. Currently I am a sophomore at Iowa State studying Child, Adult, and Family Services, I work in the lab school on campus and I also am a Passion Party consultant.

Academically speaking I am at my best from morning to noon because I am able to really focus and work efficiently during those times. The later on in the day that I go the more my motivation goes out the window! oops. :/ As a friend I am my best at nights and on weekends. I love to spend all my time with my friends and I would do absolutely anything for them all.  Speaking in a sense of my job/career I am at my absolute best when I am working with kids. Currently I work at the lab school on campus and I LOVE my job. It's reassuring that I am really in the right major for me. Someday I hope to own my own daycare or be a preschool teacher!

I really enjoy hanging out with my friends on the weekends and going to movies. In fact, sometimes I think that my friends and I speak in movie quotes because thats what we do a lot of the time. Outside of friends I enjoy working because like I had previously said I do love my job at the lab school. When I am back home I love to help out on the farm with the livestock but I really love to ride horses. My family goes a lot together and so this is one thing that I will hopefully be able to do for a long time!

I am most passionate about children so I love learning about their development and issues within the childhood years. Outside of that I do love learning about how to grow as a person because if you aren't learning something then you aren't doing anything beneficial.

As a peer mentor I would really like to learn how to communicate better with students. Throughout this program I would also really like to gain more leadership skills then I already have because I feel this can always be worked on no matter what! I hope that for the incoming freshmen I am able to help them if they are troubled with their majors because I did have a lot of experience with this my first year. I am not joking when I say I have changed my major approximately 8 times. I was always so frustrated about this topic so I think that have been in that situation I will really be able to help anyone who is also going through any similar experience with a switch in majors.

My 9 month old "niece" wrote you guys a little letter because she wanted to say hello:

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Anyways I believe that is all for this first blog!

Nicole :)