Leadership Experience--#1

I have been involved with the on-campus student-run non-profit organization Camp Wildcat for a year and a half now. This is an organization, which, in short, takes underprivileged 4th-8th graders on weekend-long camping trips and portrays college as an attainable goal. Last year, as a general member, I took on several leadership roles, first, as the winter formal director, then as a camp director, and then as the publicity head for our annual auction. This year, I am the club's community relations chair.

For me, directing a Big Camp (a camp where we take ~60 4th or 5th graders) was one of the most meaningful leadership experiences of my life. I took on this hefty responsibility with my friend Adria and we planned the camp from the ground up. We were responsible for planning everything, from the theme, activities, finding a school, parents' and kids' meetings, coordinating volunteers and transportation, to implementing the actual activities held on camp.

Out of the experience came "Big Camp 3: Rockets, Microwaves, and Broccoli, Oh my!", an engineering-themed camp in which we provided the tools and education for students to experiment with different kinds of energy (solar, wind, exothermic/endothermic reactions), to build balloon-powered cars and to build catapults (which were later used to shoot water balloons at their counselors), and to learn how to tailor their inventions to every kind of person, regardless of their ability.

This experience taught me a lot about myself and what I want to do with my life, mostly. It gave me direction and helped me to realize some of my own personal goals. It helped me to develop better organizational skills, to lead in a way that encourages cooperation from others, to identify the workload I am capable of carrying, among many, many other things. It truly gave me a lust for leadership and it made me want to continue building a leadership style. It also helped me to identify poor qualities of leadership and to avoid such tendencies.

However, I think the most important thing that I learned to do was to lead by example. I found that if I was there pitching in with the rest of the volunteers instead of merely directing them and ordering them about.

Welcome Earthlings

This will be my leadership blog for H ED 201: Foundations of Leadership.

I solemnly swear
*I will not lead you astray.
*I will first learn, then implement. Not the other way around.
*I will be factual. I cannot promise to be concise, funny, or serious. As a feather in the wind, so the breeze moves me.

Happy trails!