From attending school at North Carolina State University as a senior in Technology Design Engineering with a concentration in Graphic Communications and as a Resident Advisor, I have learned that I need to put myself in as many opportunities to speak in public as possible. A great leader can oftentimes find themselves trying to express ideas and if I cannot comfortably and intelligently speak my mind then I may find myself missing out on enormous opportunities to group thinking. I have learned that I am similar to many people in that I value family and relationships but that I typically put more of an emphasis in personal development than most of my peers. I also realize that my life-changing experiences are not so specific as to a singular event but rather as a lesson learned over time. What this means is that I spend a lot of time reflecting in these situations which help me to replicate what works and avoid making the same mistakes.
An understanding that my experiences and values such as growth and freedom hold a strong influence over my decision-making process will allow me a fresh opportunity to extrospection, observing other people's values for further growth. Being that I value personal growth and prominence, I must be careful to make sure that it does not become too excessive to the point where I alienate myself from growing through others. To prevent this, I will make sure to set goals for interacting with my residents and not only answer the standard questions we are supposed to ask but how they view my performance and how they’d like to see me improve.
All in all, I think my experiences and values add diversity to the people that surround me and inspire others to grow and develop, to challenge themselves but be open to critique. In respect to this assignment, I would like to further practice growth and development through others as opposed to myself all the time. In conclusion, school has helped me to understand that while spending the time to introspect can be a good thing, extrospection can be good as well, acting as a sort of balance. I look forward to using this lesson towards my current activities as an RA in determining how values can be used to help build a sense of community among the residents. Self-reflection has been very beneficial but in the future, I would like to reflect through others to see how they evaluate my personal growth and my performance as an RA which my residents may value.