i'm where i belong

I just received some very exciting news this afternoon! I interviewed last week for one of three Orientation Assistant positions for New Student Programs here at Tech. The position is essentially the second year extension of Orientation Leader, except you do more behind-the-scenes work and don't have groups of freshmen. Instead, I will be mentoring the Orientation Leaders and helping them with training.

The other Orientation Assistants (two other girls and three guys) are literally a dream team. I could not have picked a more perfect team for these positions. It really is true that all things happen for a reason. I wrote on the first day of orientation this past summer in my journal:

I am so happy to be where I am. This is so much bigger than I can imagine. It's going to push me. I'm going to be a better person because of this summer.

Every word of that is true. I grew so much from my experience, and I feel like I learned more about myself than I thought would be possible. I am so excited to be able to work with the new Orientation Leaders of 2012 to help them have the same wonderful experience I did.

Last night, I taught myself how to use iMovie on my new Macbook Pro, and I made a video of my Orientation experience. What perfect timing...

expressive

As I am about a month in to my senior year ofcollege, I am recognizing how much I truly love my major and the career I have ahead of me. I attribute this passion to my dad, who was the one who originally encouraged me to apply to the Pamplin College of Business as a Marketing Management Major. My Buyer-Seller Relationships class is one of my favorite marketing courses thus far not only because I think the material is so relevant to many aspects of life, but also because it reminds me of my dad, a real estate broker. One particular class last week reminded me of my dad.

Since I was about 15 years old, my dad has emphasized the importance of understanding your personality, its strengths/weaknesses, and its reactions. There is an assessment, called "Bulls/Tigers/Owls/Lambs," that he gives to his real estate agents to help them understand their personality as well as their clients' personalities. I have taken this assessment multiple times, and my dad has coached me on interacting with other personality types.

I truly believe that my dad's lessons on personality coaching have helped shape the person I am today. I have learned the invaluable lesson that not everyone responds to the same approach to conflict, criticism, or direction. This seems like a "no-brainer" concept, but it is incredible how many times I have encountered campus leaders, supervisors, classmates, and friends who treat criticism with one uniform approach. I believe that the best leaders are the ones who know their followers well enough that they understand how to convey their message in the way that will be best received. In some instances, I want to remind people that "you catch more bees with honey."

Last week, my Buyer-Seller professor gave the class a personality assessment that measures one's responsiveness and assertiveness. After scoring myself on criteria ranging from decisiveness to openness, I found that I scored highly for both the assertiveness and responsiveness categories.

Ranking high in assertiveness means that I have a tendency to be opinionated, fast-paced, and quick to speak out. While I think that my reactions definitely depend on the situation, I admit that I agree with these results. I am firm in my beliefs, direct in communication, and I don't like to "talk around the subject."

High scores in responsiveness reveal that I am relationship-oriented, openly emotional, casual, informal,and that I like to talk through my ideas (love collaboration). I completely agree that this is spot-on...Except for maybe the casual/informal part, seeing as I wear a dress to class nearly every day, and I always like to have a plan. Other than that, I love group dynamics, am empathetic towards others, and ultimately want to touch peoples' lives.

With combined high scores in these two areas, I am cast as an "expressive." This means I am animated, highly communicative, dislike being alone, uninhibited in communication, enthusiastic, open-minded. I am big-picture oriented, spontaneous, but not necessarily organized in my daily life (I like to call it organized chaos). These are very accurate descriptors of my personality, and are very much coordinate with other personality assessment results I have taken. I think that it is critical to understand your personality and how you fit into a group, for both the workplace and you social life. I feel very fortunate to have started this lesson early on and to have professors who further invest in this development.

a look at last week

"Find life experiences and swallow them whole. Travel. Meet many people. Go down some dead ends and explore dark alleys. Try everything. Exhaust yourself in the glorious pursuit of life."

- Lawrence K. Fish

I am such a "quote person." I love having little reminders and insights of inspiration. Last week in itself was a glimpse of what a great year this is going to be.

I started the week off by doing something that has been on my bucket list for quite some time now...giving blood. It has always scared me because I am a bit squirmish when it comes to needles, but with the support of friends and the knowledge that "I make a difference," I did it. While I almost fainted in the process, I was so proud after.

By the middle of the week, my group for my Buyer-Seller Relationships class was in full force to work on our presentation. Our professor met with the department head for the marketing department, and we are now set to pitch our ideas and research to them later on this semester. We have a lot of work cut out for us, but we are all so excited and motivated to make this an awesome presentation.

The week ended with a trip to The Cascades out past Pembroke, VA with my family. I hadn't been to the Cascades since my freshman year, and I was excited to show my brother and parents what awesome things are practically in my backyard here at school. I, of course, had a great time capturing the trip with Instagram pictures.

Here's to another great week ahead.