Fin

'I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as they get older; then it dawned on me - they're cramming for their final exam." -George Carlin

Finals week........so we meet again.

Class was bittersweet this week! I'm really glad we all shared our plans for the summer--can't wait to come back in the fall and find out how everything went for everyone! The charades game was fun--thanks for that Chelsee! Also, we may need to work on Allie's charade skills!!

Looking back on the semester, I have definitely learned a lot! I am so glad we got to know each other well and we will have so much fun in the fall putting our skills and training to good use! The book was very helpful and gave some great hints and I'm glad to have a portfolio with some lesson plans ready to go as well! (p.s.-when are we supposed to hand in our books? Did I miss the memo?Should I be expecting a reminder email from Chelsee?...shucks.)

Good luck with finals this week everyone! I have no doubt that as a group we will thoroughly kick some butt! :) Have a happy summer and see you all in the fall!!!

AHHHHH! Pairings!

“It’s only when we can work with something that brings out our strengths that we’re of any real use.”
― Henning Mankell, The Fifth Woman

This week we finally found out our pairings for next fall and.....(drumroll please!) I am paired with Sir Tyler Main! The fall should be awesome and our mentees will for sure get a full perspective on journalism (we may start a newspaper out of our section, no big deal.) The puzzle for the reveal was really clever and cute! I think we're all matched up really well! The discussion on Facebook was also pretty grand!

Wednesday's class also featured the revealing of our final product for DST and it turned out great! Thanks everyone for all the hard work you put in!

The previous peer mentor panel was a really informative discussion. I learned a lot about what to expect (ANYTHING) and how I can prepare myself! It was great to have their perspective! It was great to be able to ask them questions and see how they all still connected with one another!

The retreat yesterday was awesome--thanks again to Allie for hosting all of us! P.s.--you have the most adorable dog ever! It was great to be able to relax outside with everyone in the beautiful weather! It was a really laid back retreat and we all got to relax and bond--that's really important going into the summer....plus, you know, the two truths and a lie game was kind of a bombshell...so yeah. :)
I'm excited for the details of the fall retreat to take shape and for the summer read!

See you all in class Wednesday (or tomorrow night at van training!)

Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership

"A woman has to be intelligent, have charm, a sense of humor, and be kind. It's the same qualities I require from a man."
Catherine Deneuve


Well, here we are! So close to the end of the semester! It's gone by so quickly!

This week we were asked by Chelsee to blog about a paper we read titled, "Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership" by Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatzis. The paper pointed to 7 qualities that help make a good leader. They are: empathy, attunement, organizational awareness, influence, developing others, inspiration, and teamwork. 

Two qualities of social intelligence that I feel I excel at are attunement and organizational awareness. I feel that I naturally am aware of how people are feeling most of the time and I adjust my demeanor to fit their needs. I often find that the emotions of others influence how I feel so I make an active effort to keep in mind why that person might be feeling that way. Organizational awareness is a skill that I have developed a lot more in college. I have had many experiences working with diverse groups at Iowa State and that has given me a lot of perspective on how to handle different cultures and what their norms or feelings on different topics may be. Living with two Chinese roommates this semester has definitely put those skills to the test in my day-to-day life. 

One characteristic of social intelligence that I feel I can improve is influence. I feel that I have the ability to influence others but most of my training for my career teaches me to remain objective and not try to persuade people to one viewpoint over another. I think I can use influence as a peer mentor, however, as long as I remember that I can influence the first-year Hixsons to begin their experience at Iowa State in a positive way. 

Glad we finished up filming today! Hope everyone had a happy VEISHEA!

Ethics and etiquette!

A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world.

-Albert Camus

 

This week were were asked to blog about the five ethics qualities that are most important to us from Students Helping Students. Here are my 5:

1. "When in doubt--consult1"
This principle is very important to me because I know that our Hixson staff has a lot of expertise and if I ever have any questions I can go to them or refer students to them. It's really comforting to me to know that although I am chiefly responsible for helping students, I have a great network of support!

2. "Knowing and managing your emotional response, while helping another, is crucial to your own well-being and to your ability to help."
I think of myself as a very empathetic person and I can imagine that during two-on-ones next fall I could hear some information from students that is very different than what I had imagined based on seeing them in class. Knowing that I need to be able to control my reactions is important both as a peer mentor and as a journalist, so that's a skill that I find really important.

3. "Take responsible action if you learn about illegal behavior."
We talked about this one in class quite a bit, but I think it's really important to remember our role as professionals as well as educators.

4. "Remember that as a peer educator, you are a role model!"
This one is obviously VERY important! I can't imagine trusting or confiding in someone I knew was acting irresponsibly in some aspect of their life, so it's important that the mentees know I am a responsible and respectful person whom they can confide in!

5. "Show respect and dignity for other individuals."
Kind of going back to #4, being respectful and responsible is literally crucial to our role as peer mentors, we have to be role models in our actions as well as our words, and that means treating everyone with dignity and respect, regardless of the situation.

The etiquette dinner was super fun tonight! It was great seeing everyone in a semi-relaxed atmosphere! Plus I picked up tons of useful tips that just might help me land a job someday!

Resources

"What's right about America is that although we have a mess of problems, we have great capacity--intellect and resources--to do something about them."
-Henry Ford

This week Megan and Jess led an awesome lesson on academic resources! Since I just put together a lesson plan for that same topic, it was really great to see their ideas!

I really liked the discussion about academic resources that we all know that are available at ISU! We got quite the list going on the board! I like to think that I know an awful lot about our campus since it is sort of my duty to be able to answer random questions giving tours for the Office of Admissions. But......I have to admit that there were a handful up there that I wasn't so familiar with. That's a great example of how it's hard to know everything about Iowa State. I remember that my peer mentors freshman year were great about letting us know about resources related to our discussion topic each week. I thought that was a great way to educate us about resources on campus because instead of getting information overload we learned a little each week. It was also nice that if we had questions about resources that hadn't been discussed in class yet we could always go to our peer mentors for advice!

I also loved the game that you guys put together! Cute power point, I know you must have put some serious time into that! It was appreciated! Too bad we ran out of time at the end (especially since Cole, Kat, and I were winning!)

I'm looking forward to the etiquette dinner later this month and DST filming THIS WEEK! Whoo! I hope everyone had a very happy Easter and enjoyed the absolutely beautiful weather as much as I did!! See ya'll in class!

Academic Success & the Harlem Shake

"A single conversation across the table with a wise person is worth a month's study of books."
-Chinese proverb

This week we started out seminar with a serious discussion about the Harlem Shake videos that are flooding the web and how people who are actually from Harlem feel about them. I thought this was a very timely and relevant discussion considering ISCORE was just a couple weeks ago and diversity has been a main point of discussion among peer mentors.

After watching the news reports and videos, I can see both sides of the argument regarding the Harlem Shake videos. It is not an easy topic for all of us to come to an agreement on but for that reason I think it serves as a fantastic example of how we have to be able to respect others even though we may not agree with them at all. I really enjoyed that we could have a serious and mature discussion about the video, too!

Now, a huge congrats is in order for Shelby and Stephanie for leading such a great discussion after a serious discussion! I really liked that you guys used the VART test because it allowed each of us to recognize our own learning styles and each other’s. I was really impressed with how you guys included everyone so naturally by asking about their style and whether that was what they had guessed. I know people learn in a lot of different ways and it is definitely useful to learn about fellow peer mentor’s learning styles and a skill or test that would be fantastic for our students next fall! The ice breaker was also really fun! It was a really quick and easy way to learn about each other a little more!

Hope everyone is enjoying their spring break!

Ps-sorry if this posts weird, by internet is super slow! 

Leadership lessons!

"The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been."

— Henry Kissinger

This week's topic in UST 311 was leading groups effectively. Josh and Brady did a great job facilitating the discussion this week! I liked that they linked everything we discussed both to the text and to situations that we will likely encounter next fall! It really helped bring things full circle! I'm loving watching everyone's lesson plans evolve week to week and I can definitely see our group getting stronger and closer!

So the prompt Brady and Josh gave us for this week was to discuss whether we think leaders are born or made. After putting some thought into this topic I think I could go on and on about it, but I think that leaders are at the very least more often made then born. 

Here's my reasoning: I think that many people are born with talents that contribute to their leadership abilities, but that alone does not make you a leader. For example, some people are naturally great at making conversation or organizing their work. It's kind of like our MBTI skills, just a part of who you are. But here's the clincher: all those skills could be useless if you don't know how to properly apply them to real-life leadership situations. Becoming a leader is something that requires experience in my opinion. That's why it's so important that we take UST 311 this semester to refine the skills we all already possess! 

That's just my opinion but I'm interested to see what the rest of you think about this topic! Class this week made me reflect on that list of leadership skills we made in seminar earlier this semester, and I'm convinced that as a group we have all the bases covered! 

I had fun with everyone at the retreat today! I'm excited for the ice breakers that we didn't get to and to get the ball rolling with filming the DST project! And it's almost spring break! Hang in there everyone!

Diversity Event: Ending Racism in an Hour or So

“The pianokeys are black and white
but they sound like a million colors in your mind
From "Spiders web” 
― MariaCristina Mena

Last night I attended the diversity event at the Great Hall in the Memorial Union, "Ending Racism in an Hour or So" featuring W. Kamau Bell, host of FX's Totally Biased. 

This guy was seriously hilarious, but he made so many fantastic points and they tied in so well with our recent discussions in seminar.

One point he made was that racism is different now than it was when our parents or grandparents were young. Then, racism led to violent uprisings, protest, bloodshed, and unrest. Now though, Bell said, racism is more like someone says something and it makes you feel bad. One example he used to demonstrate this was posts from social media sites of things such as high school students dressed up as KKK members at a basketball game.

This related so well to our discussions last week as we wrapped up social media week. The KU controversy and ISCORE were prevalent in my mind as I listened to Bell's speech. He did a great job of keeping us laughing and relaxed. One of the points I loved the most was that he said that's how we have to address racism in America now. We have to approach the subject in a relaxed matter so that we can make progress before someone gets upset or misunderstood.

Bell also talked about the myth of "post-racial" America that supposedly began with the election of a black president. He pointed out that all you have to do is look at names of sports teams, marketing techniques, or even the categories we apply to ourselves on the census to prove that race is something that still plays a significant role in American culture. His argument wasn't that those things were necessarily bad, but that we have to recognize that they are there, they are a part of our culture for better or for worse.

I thoroughly enjoyed this lecture (and Katie's company there!) I'm glad I got to go to this event o fulfill my diversity requirement!

ISCORE 2013!

“Choose your friends and mates, not by the money in their bank account, creed, ethnicity, or color; instead, choose character, actions, heart, and soul. When we bleed, we bleed the same color.” 
― Ava Monnar

ISCORE 2013 was an eye-opening experience that I am glad to have taken part in! Here's an overview of the session I was able to attend with Haley and Chelsee!

The session was titled "Where Are All Our Men of Color? Personal Experiences of Men of Color at ISU" at 2:10 in the Gold Room. 

One of the first things that the speakers said was for the audience to live tweet the session. I loved this because as a journalism major that's something I'm used to doing for most news events that I cover for classes and such! Also, it is much easier to keep track of notes and know what other people in the crowd are thinking!

The speakers first discussed the Model of Multiple Dimensions of Identities. I know that's a mouthful so here's a visual for you guys. 



Basically, this model points out how different parts of a person's identity intersect at different places. The focus for this session was the intersection of race and gender (hence men of color at ISU). That was a really clear setup for the talk and gave it good direction!

The speakers pointed out how men of color are often looked at from a 'deficit model'. Basically that means looking at the negatives alone. We were encouraged to think about roadblocks that colored men face in college. They included family responsibilities, stereotypes, financial pressures, avoidance of alcohol and drugs, pressures of adulthood, work, community and home situations. We discussed how we can aid colored men in overcoming these roadblocks.

Which leads us to catalysts for success. These were the things that aided colored men in succeeding in college. They included   joining organizations, getting internships, tapping resources, immersing themselves in their own cultural heritage, reaching out to others of their same race or ethnicity on campus.

One of the most interesting facts I learned during this session was that there are less than 1,000 men of color at ISU. We discussed how the university makes an effort to recruit colored men, but doesn't necessarily make an effort to guide these students through their education once they are admitted. This comes down to accountability and I had never really thought about how the university isn't held accountable for the success of these students after recruitment even though they are recognized to be vulnerable students.

To improve in the future, the group discussed building a network of support among men of color at ISU, not only among students, but also among faculty and staff. Setting aside a sense of competition to succeed among colored students and channeling it into support for one another was one of my favorite points.

Overall, this was a great session. I loved the interaction and the direct input by audience members through discussion and social media.

Social Media Week & the Group Process!

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
-Margaret Mead

Another week down!! Anyone else shocked that spring break is now only two weeks away?! Can't wait!

So last week was social media week for UST 311 and I must admit that I wasn't exactly looking forward to it....shameful, I know. I like Twitter, but since I don't have a smartphone I find it difficult to keep up with everything that goes on. Also, I usually only use Twitter to scope out news sources for my journalism classes so I think that gives it a negative stigma in my head! 

However, I am happy to say that I enjoyed this week much more than I expected to! This was really the first time that I've really had any interaction with others on Twitter (sad, I know.) bu I'm happy to have had this experience with all of you! I think I will use Twitter a little more consistently in the future and it will definitely be useful for getting to know students next fall!

Next on the agenda is to give props to Tyler and Kat for a job well done this week! You guys had fantastic flow in your lesson and I never felt like I was being lectured to! You'll both do great next fall!

This week's seminar was about understanding the group process. We discussed how understanding different roles and defining those roles can help a group function more productively. I really liked the activity where we compared and contrasted two groups we had been a part of: one poor and one positive. It really helped me pinpoint what the exact differences in those group structures were and think about ways I can improve groups I am a part of in the future! Also, great job by Kat and Tyler relating everything they talked about to situations we'll face next fall!

Looking forward to another week! 

Problem Solving with Individuals: Small Wins and Small Loses

“We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them” 
― Albert Einstein

This week our lesson on problem solving with individuals was led by Sebastian and Brad! I thought they did a great job of highlighting the main points of the chapter and applying them in ways that will be practical to potential situations we will encounter next fall as peer mentors. 

We were asked to think about the differences between positive and negative goals and how we might apply those as peer mentors. It got me thinking about a workshop I attended earlier this week that focused on SMART goal setting (that was a breeze and the leader of the group was impressed that I knew all about it) and then small wins vs. small losses. That was a new concept, but one that I am readily embracing! I'll explain it so maybe you can utilize them as a peer mentor, too!

Here's how it works. 

Basically, a small win is like a mini-step within a SMART goal. Say you wake up tomorrow morning and you say to yourself, "I have to go to my Econ class today." Although this isn't a huge goal, completing it successfully will help contribute to a larger pattern of wins, a positive and achievable step toward the overarching goal, that is, for example, "I want to improve my Econ score by ten points on the next exam."

A small loss is the opposite.  Small losses are negative steps that deter from a larger goal. For example, "I'm not going to my Econ class today," is a small loss. This decision hurts the larger goal you are trying to achieve. On top of that, when small losses add up, they tend to make you feel very inadequate and unsuccessful. You may start to anticipate failure instead of success and become even less motivated to put effort into your work. 

Moral of the story is this, those small decisions you make each and every day contribute to how you reach your larger goals and how you feel about the direction of your life and work. Hopefully this will be helpful (or at least interesting) to some of you! I just find it to be an easy way to take steps toward your goals in a measurable way on a daily basis!

See you all in class!!

The Flip Side!

“No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.” 
-Charles Dickens

This week I got to be on the flip side of recitation when Katie and I led our very first seminar! I must say that once we got there, I was not nearly as nervous as I thought I might be! It was really nice to have had the lesson plans figured out in advance and to have feedback from Chelsee and Allie! For those of you still planning--definitely take full advantage of their advice because it is super helpful!!

So, this week's topic was helping relationships and interpersonal communication. The text, Students Helping Students, names some characteristics of a helping relationship that are very insightful. I think the list does a really good job of highlighting skills in a way that helped me understand the skills I already have and those I need to further develop I think that the characteristics that stick out to me as ones I have the most experience with are communication and interaction, feelings, and collaborative effort. These are the most familiar to me because of activities that I have been involved in (or am currently involved in). I have have a lot of communication experience (as a journalism major, that's shocking, I know) and I feel that being empathetic of other's feelings comes pretty naturally to me. As a tutor, I know that the best way to make progress in many situations is to have every individual making an effort, so collaboration is key for helping relationships to take place. It's all about the give and take!

Skills that I feel I need to pay more attention to are making sure I'm approachable and secure, showing a clear structure, and helping produce change. For me, these are the most difficult aspects of a helping relationship. I find that I sometimes get sidetracked by my own problems, and that's not an option in a helping relationship. I know I said in class that I won't talk to someone who I feel is struggling with personal problems because I don't want to compound their stress by adding my problems to theirs. This being said, I want to make sure that I keep and problems I may have completely separate from those helping relationships. A clear structure is also a little difficult for me to follow, but that is mostly because I tend to find tangents in conversation and get off topic. This can be avoided if I make a conscious effort to focus on the problem at hand, an that will help my efforts more effectively produce change as well!

I had a lot of fun at the retreat today! See you all in class on Wednesday!

Cultural Proficiency Brought to us by Easten!

“Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of
differences.”
-Mikhail Gorbachev

Another week of spring semester has now flown by! We have arrived at the time of the semester when peer mentors will begin planning and teaching part of each week's seminar and I was very happy to learn from none other than Easten this week!

The focus of this week was on cultural diversity and I thought that Easten did a fantastic job of incorporating material from the book into the class activities. One of his main points was that we need to be empathetic, not sympathetic, to other people's situations. The "All my neighbors activity" was great because it really helped demonstrate the similarities we all have as peer mentors and how we are each unique!

I thought the sheet we filled out with our unique cultural influences was a great way to wrap up the seminar because it gave us a chance to reflect and piece everything together! I realized that we all have very diverse influences but that makes us a much stronger group. We have varied perspectives on different issues and we have a lot that we can learn from each other by keeping an open mind. Open-mindedness will be essential as a peer mentor too because our students will have unique experiences that have shaped them!

Since Katie and I are leading seminar on helping relationships next week, I thought this was a really great step in our learning! I can see now how all the topics in the text are starting to weave together and I'm really excited to see what my fellow peer mentors have in store for lesson plans!

I'm looking forward to this week! It was a really great learning process to put together a lesson plan and then have it critiqued! I think that tweaks we made are good and I hope you all learn something and enjoy class on Wednesday!!

Life of an ESFP!

"There are three things extemely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one's self." -Benjamin Franklin
(Yes, another Ben Franklin quote....)

After a week of looking forward to my results, I could not be happier with the class and the analysis of my MBTI results! I truly find this assessment to be a great personal learning tool and just plain interesting as well!

So, I'm an ESFP, but in some cases just barely.

I'm about a 26 for extroversion, not shocking to me at all! I'm that person who gets antsy sitting in a room by myself, I am the definition of a people person!

As for sensing, I come in around 14. The subcategory that lowered by sensing results was an out of preference characteristic for original over traditional. I guess that makes sense to me as I read the descriptions, especially "like being original and different, but not so much as to be out of the mainstream."


I had one big of preference characteristics for feeling, leaving me in the slight preference. I was shocked to see that my feeling preference wasn't very high, but the questioning category falls under thinking vs. feeling, and I am most definitely a questioner! I continually find myself becoming frustrated if I can't get a straightforward answer to help me understand a situation or a problem so it's good to know that is a part of my personality. In addition, these results equip me with advice about how to avoid those frustrations! Hallelujah!

So perceiving, yeah turns out that fits me pretty well, until you get to emergent vs. methodical. I am VERY methodical. Although I love to have some flexibility in my plans, I HAVE to know when things will get done and have an active plan to get them done. The description "see routine as helpful in your work life but find it confining at home--or vice versa" is a perfect one for me! I have to have a plan for my academic/professional life, but my personal life is a very relaxed, go with the flow atmosphere that allows me to decompress!

My results say that ESFP's are most satisfied in a work environment that is friendly, realistic, flexible and action-oriented. I'm pretty sure those exact words appear on some journalism job descriptions, so that really helps me understand why journalism is such an appealing career to me. 

In closing, the phrase in my entire results booklet describing ESFP's  that I loved the most was "their attitude is that life is to be lived now, not analyzed," so I'm off to finish my Superbowl Sunday doing just that!

Learning Communities Mid-Year Institute & ISLE

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” 
-Benjamin Franklin

On Friday (aka the busiest day in existence...) I attended two afternoon sessions at the Learning Communities Mid-Year Institute.

The first session I attended was called "Call, Tweet, Post, or Text--Using social and alternative media to build a community" led by Lindsey LaMair and Rachel Peller.  This session discussed how utilizing different forms of social media can strengthen group interactions. One thing that I found interesting about the session was examples of different ways of using social media sites that I hadn't thought of for groups before. Specifically, the presenters talked about using Pinterest to facilitate a group discussion on how women are portrayed in media images. I found this unique, although it obviously applies to some groups better than others.

The second session that I attended was titled "Making a Mentor-Driven Learning Community" with Chris Jacobs and Krista Klocke. Although there were only four people in the audience (myself included), I found this session to be both informative and wonderfully interactive. As freshman honors program mentors, the speakers had both worked with groups to create a unique theme for the semester (i.e. spys, Disney, Harry Potter, etc.). I thought a similar idea could be used to unify Hixson recitation sections. A theme gives a group both a sense of unity and uniqueness so I would be interested to see how that would work for Hixson scholars!

On Saturday, I attended ISLE and I found it to be a very fun experience! I ended up staying all day! The opening keynote speaker, Dr. Darin Eich sent a good message with his "root down and branch out" philosophy on leadership in college. The first session I attended was "Maximizing Leadership Potential" with Rachel Owen. This session turned out to be mostly about marketing your skills, so it didn't apply to peer mentoring as much as I had hoped, but I did learn how I can better portray myself to potential employers! The second session I attended (after a nice lunch with fellow Hixsons!) was "Say Whaaa?" with Andrea Ramos and Jeni Roberts. This session made me really aware of how the words I say can greatly influence how others feel. That's really important to keep in mind as a peer mentor so I will definitely remember that advice and information moving forward! The final session I attended was "Emotional Intelligence: How to Understand Yourself and Others" with Amy Fitzjarrald. This session related to the previous session really well! It made me realize the difference between intent and impact in the messages we send to others, even in general comments. One thing that I wish the speaker would have focused on more was the Johari window idea, maybe someone who attended that session can fill me in??

All in all, it was a very informational couple of days and I picked up a few ideas that will come in handy this fall for sure!!

Building a community one question ball toss at a time!

“I am struck by how sharing our weakness and difficulties is more nourishing to others than sharing our qualities and successes.” 
― Jean Vanier, Community And Growth

I am happy to say that I think I will be able to remember everyone's name after the two rounds of question ball this week! In all seriousness though, I think that activity is a fantastic way to get to know each other on a more personal level and I certainly have every intention of using it next fall!

Starting class by announcing our strengths and weaknesses really helped me get my head in the game. Since watching the Fish! video last week, I have been thinking more about how I consistently struggle to be present in many of my classes. Something as simple as a glance at my to-do list can send me into a mental flurry of ideas and distractions. My new goal is to mentally check myself every time I start a class, an activity, or even a simple conversation with a friend to make sure I am fully present!

Be honest everybody, how excited are you for MBTI results this week?! I am pumped. I remember getting my results as a freshman and being blown away that a test could describe me so well, it was literally mind boggling. I think the MBTI is a fantastic test for freshman to take as it can really help them identify things about their learning styles and emotions that can be hard to identify or describe to others. MBTI results will be a nice tool to have to help connect with students and understand how certain situations make them feel. 

I was required to take a similar personality test last semester in one of my journalism classes and the professor went over the results with us. She said something about how the introverts in our class were going to have a tougher time in any journalism career since they are often very quiet. I know that introverts generally are quieter people, but her more or less dismissing those students seemed very rude to me. Introverts are often the people who do magnificent work without much notice, and as an extrovert that amazes me. As a peer mentor, my goal is to make sure that Hixson scholars next fall don't feel like their personality limits their potential and not to let anyone tell them what they can't do. 

Sorry no cute kitten video this week, but hopefully you all get what I'm saying anyway! (:

Beginning the journey: What is a 'peer educator' anyway?

"Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together." 
-Vincent Van Gogh 

After reading the first two chapters of Students Helping Students, my initial reaction was that I had no idea there would be so much vocabulary involved in mentoring! It brought me to a good realization though: there are a lot of specifics when it comes to being a leader. Being a peer educator has a much wider definition than what I had previously assumed and I now recognize many people in my own life who have served such a role without me even being aware of it.

The process of maturation was something that seemed really weird to read about. I think that as students we have a tendency to go through our day to day lives assuming we've all faced many of the same trials and tribulations, the same triumphs and tragedies. And to a certain extent, that assumption holds true. What we often fail to recognize however is that we all react to those situations in different ways and that they have infinitely many different effects on our views about ourselves and our lives. 

I never really gave much thought to how different processes of maturation would make a huge difference in how peer educator should approach any given situation. Sure, we all face some pretty standard challenges when we begin our adventures at Iowa State, but how students react to those challenges is different in each individual case. I'm really interested to learn in upcoming weeks how to assess those situations and understand students on a personal level. I now recognize that's the only way to truly be able to successfully guide them on a positive path. 

Hopefully this cute kitten video will drive my point home. Just like Pepper, we all face obstacles in unique ways. Some of us will take charge and tackle our challenges immediately and effectively, but others require some reflective analysis and the guidance of peers to take that first step. As peer mentors in training, we are responsible for showing students the way and providing constructive routes for them to follow, even if that means just climbing up a few stairs!