Resources and Referrals

Campus resources, I always thought that those things really didn't matter. I never needed them, except for the Thielen Health Center, which was a really bad experience. They had awful service and weren't helpful at all, actually they were more of a hindrance than anything. After that I didn't want anything to do with any of the campus resources. But this week really allowed me to see all of the possibilities that they can give students, especially first year students. Something that I really need to work on is learning a lot of the resources that are offered and figure out how they can help in certain situations. Along with knowing the resources being able to give advice or refer is something that is really important as well.

Referring people to different things is something that I am not used too. This makes me really nervous to give one because I don't want to screw up and tell them the wrong thing. I like to thing that I can do everything on my own and give perfect advice. Although this is not true in the slightest. I am far from perfect and that includes my advice or any help that I try to give. So the fact that I will probably screw up is not something that I want to happen at all. So I will be working a lot on making sure that I know a lot so that I can help students the best that I can.

This week was really good for me because it got me motivated to start getting ready for the coming semester. A wakeup call that it is coming soon and that I need to prepared!

Academic Success

Kayla and Courtney did a great job presenting the information about academic success and the different factors that go into that. I hadn't thought about the different things that affect how I succeed academically or my study habits. I think that some of the key things that I took away from it is that you can't just judge someone by their academic success because you don't always know what went into their past or circumstances that made them that way. As peer mentors we are going to have to work with different students that have come from different things and surround themselves with different environments. As mentors we are going to have to try to identify those things and how we can help them improve given the things that we can't change. I know that coming in as a freshman I realized that it was hard for me to study, but I didn't recognize why it was so hard for me. It took some people outside of the situation to help me improve my study habits and that is one thing that I can't wait to do for the incoming first year students.

Another thing that I learned is just to look at my past and how that is constantly affecting who I am today. I tend to just forget the past or just not see how it has shaped me. After this week and discussion I had a chance to just sit back and really examine every part about me and what possibly could have affected it. I am going to really emphasize to my first year students how important it is to reflect on their past and more importantly to look at who they are, every aspect of their life, and see what made them that way.

Retreat and Week 8

The retreat I thought went really well! The ice breakers were very beneficial and I learned a little to a lot about everyone. Kayla did a great job going deeper with her ice breaker than a lot of other people did. I feel like it was very beneficial to our group as a whole.

Giving a presentation at the retreat was a little bit different than a usual retreat. I feel like it was a little rough going a lot later than we were supposed to. I know that Brooke and I could have done a better job at presenting the information but, I feel like it was great experience for the coming year. It was also really hard going on a sunday. People just want to relax or focus on homework. Everyone had a lot on their minds about the coming week, and spring break! It was a great reminder that I need to stay focused and be energized for each and every lecture.

The exercise that Nikki and Matt suggested that we looked at asked us to focus on our strongest and weakest leadership practices and why we selected them. My strongest leadership practice is the ability to talk to anyone, I selected this practice because I have always loved talking and relating to people is one of my favorite things to do! It allows me to share my experiences and what I have learned to connect with others, rather than just telling them what to do.

I can't to see how we can use our strengths and weaknesses to help teach our students next year. I can't wait to further my skills as a leader in the future!

Social Media and Groups!

Groups and the way that groups work is a thing that we have talked a lot about as Hixsons. With MBTI and other situations, we have heard almost everything about them. But I think that Kira and Angie did something that I have never seen before! With the different roles and how they play a part in groups. It was a new look and something that I had never thought of. In the exercise I got the role of making sure everyones opinions were being recognized. I used to think that I valued everyone's opinions, but I quickly realized how much I love to initiate the task at hand. It was really hard for me to play a role that I wasn't used to, or felt comfortable with. It was really hard to complete the task they gave us for me when I couldn't do what I want. I am so glad they approached the chapter with this exercise and emphasis. It really helped me to learn a lot and I will definitely be applying it to the numerous group projects that I have as a business major!

Now for Social Media Week. I don't tweet very much, so being forced to tweet 20 times in under a week was something that I wasn't ready for. It was really weird constantly looking for things to say and that were relevant to say to the world. But besides the difficulty and unbearable burden that it caused me throughout the week, it was really fun getting to talk to all of the peer mentors all the time! I think that this week helped us to come closer together and was actually kind of fun. :D I can see how it may be helpful to different groups and plan on using it a lot in the upcoming semesters and with my incoming first year students!

Sam Hausler

Communication

Communication is an essential part of our everyday life, or so I have been told. Over and over I have heard about how communication is a huge part of our lives, but no one has really showed me how it affects our lives. Lauren and McKaila did a great job of showing how communication can affect everyday interactions and how it will affect us as peer mentors next year. 

One huge part of communication is listening. This part of communication has always come hard to me. I love to talk and what I used to do is use the time when other people are talking to prepare what I was going to say next. I honestly didn't care what I had to say because I thought that what I was going to say was more valuable. Last summer I was one of 8 leaders chosen to be in charge of a summer camp that I have worked at since my junior year in high school. One of our main tasks was to help mentor some people in our groups that we were in charge of. That summer I realized the value of listening and the major role that it plays in mentoring someone. 

Along with working at that summer camp is something that I talked about during class. At camp we were sharing the Gospel with the campers, the greatest news they would ever hear. But sometimes it felt like they weren't listening to what we were saying. Something that our head director once told us is that, "They won't care what you know, until they know that you care." This applies to us as peer mentors for the next year. The first year students won't care about our experiences, advice, or other things we have to offer, until they know that we truly care about them.

Chapter 3 Enhancing Cultural Proficiency

Chapter three is all about our own cultural proficiency and how we view different people and situations. Exercise 3.5 in the book looks solely at what is your culture and helping us our culture and where we came from. It really allowed me to look at how we are all different and realizing what as influenced me as well. It was something I had never thought about before. Growing up in the suburbs and just being what I thought was normal. I always thought about how people were different from me and not how I was different from other people and how my environment had shaped me. That was one of the main things I got from this chapter, is that I am different than others and I need to see that as well.

Josh did a really great job of speaking on this topic in class on thursday. The most impactful thing for me that we did was where we looked at a list of values and chose ones that we thought were most prominent in our lives. The three that I ended up choosing were faith, love, and joy. Before going into the class and seeing that list if you would have had me choose what three values I thought were most important, those probably would have been my three choices. Throughout my life, there has been nothing more important to me then those three things. If I was going to add one more, it would have to be hope. Without the hope that I have in something more than this world, I would have broken down years ago. Sometimes I don't understand how people can live life without hope.

This chapter was my favorite chapter so far because it allowed me to really look at my life and see how it will help me be a mentor. I know everyone is different, and I can't wait to hear what values other people have and how their lives have been impacted by those values.

Sam Hausler

ISLE and Peer Mentor Conference

When I first found out that we had to go to two conferences I wasn't too excited to go. I didn't want to give up most of my weekend to go to something that I didn't want to go to. But, it was something that I committed to doing so I went.

The first conference was the Peer Mentor one. We were required to go to two sessions so I chose the only two times that worked for my schedule. The first session I went to was about strengths, learning what your strengths are and the strengths  of the people that you are mentoring and how that affects your team. A lot of what they talked about resembled the MBTI talk that we had the day before. Although it was close to the MBTI talk, I still was able to take a few things out of it. They really hit on the importance of learning how each strength affects different situations and how to work as a team. It really made me excited for when the first year students take the MBTI test so that as a mentor I will have a better understanding of how our section can work as a team.

The second session I went to was about social media. This session I didn't take as much away from as the first one. They talked a lot about how they had used social media to promote their group. As Hixsons, thats not what we really use social media for. We use it as a way to communicate and encourage all of the other Hixsons around us. We aren't asking for likes, or follows, because it is already prestigious on its own.

The next conference was ISLE, or the Iowa State Leadership Experience. I had to work all morning so I missed around half of the conference but I was still able to attend four sessions during the afternoon. My favorite session I went to was what color is your brain. Although it also was like our MBTI talk it put a new perspective on it. They talked about how the brain is split into four quadrants and how we use all of them but we favor one of them. The color that I favor is blue. Blue is all about numbers and being organized. This pretty much sums up most of who I am and I was satisfied of how they did it.

Although I originally wasn't excited for last weekend, it turned out to be a good learning experience and I am glad that I was forced to go.