exploring leadership Honors seminar
I have been interested in studying leadership as an academic concept ever since my early years in high school, where I took two leadership courses as a part of our own honors program. I decided to take this course in order to further my learning about leadership which began in high school. Another reason why I chose to complete this experience is because the seminar's instructor, Erin Alanson, was one of the faculty leaders that went along on the Making Wishes Come True experience after the spring semester of 2014. Because i already knew the instructor and had developed a faculty-student relationship with her, I felt comfortable with having her as an instructor for the course, and decided to take this course as an honors experience.
This experience challenged me in ways I didn't initially expect to be challenged. First, any previous ideas I had on leadership were either affirmed or challenged as we discussed different leadership theories, values, styles, and other pieces that make up leadership and what it means to be a leader. Also, in what was probably my favorite day in this course, my own ability to be a leader was challenged and shaped when an ROTC faculty member facilitated our class through different leadership exercises and I was selected as a leader of one of the exercises. This was one of the more challenging days in this class because I was put on the spot, but it was also the most rewarding because it forced me to develop and put into practice leadership abilities on the fly, and it helped me see things that I was good at and what I needed to work on.Finally, I was challenged to stay on top of course readings and other work, and to explore my own thoughts and feelings about what we were discussing in class through blog posts, a group analysis of a student group on campus, a philosophy of leadership paper, and a mini-lesson facilitation. Especially challenging to stay on top of the assignments were the last four weeks, where the three last assignments I mentioned previously were due in a row, along with work from other courses. The blog posts were especially helpful in helping me explore my thoughts about specific topics within leadership, and the philosophy of leadership paper helped to form my idea of what leadership is, so I have included these two assignments as subpages under this experience.
This experience challenged me in ways I didn't initially expect to be challenged. First, any previous ideas I had on leadership were either affirmed or challenged as we discussed different leadership theories, values, styles, and other pieces that make up leadership and what it means to be a leader. Also, in what was probably my favorite day in this course, my own ability to be a leader was challenged and shaped when an ROTC faculty member facilitated our class through different leadership exercises and I was selected as a leader of one of the exercises. This was one of the more challenging days in this class because I was put on the spot, but it was also the most rewarding because it forced me to develop and put into practice leadership abilities on the fly, and it helped me see things that I was good at and what I needed to work on.Finally, I was challenged to stay on top of course readings and other work, and to explore my own thoughts and feelings about what we were discussing in class through blog posts, a group analysis of a student group on campus, a philosophy of leadership paper, and a mini-lesson facilitation. Especially challenging to stay on top of the assignments were the last four weeks, where the three last assignments I mentioned previously were due in a row, along with work from other courses. The blog posts were especially helpful in helping me explore my thoughts about specific topics within leadership, and the philosophy of leadership paper helped to form my idea of what leadership is, so I have included these two assignments as subpages under this experience.