ANDREA ARGUETA

  

Personal importance of task 

The Women in Leadership class was important to me for several reasons. In this class, we were challenged to think more so about our capabilities and your comfort zone. Our professor Cate Gotheals and Lynne Smith pushed us to think about ideas of leadership and outside the box manners. They both pushed me to go against the idea of comfort and security and developing ourselves by leaving these spaces that we are comfortable with. If not for this experience, I would not continuously challenge myself to dip my toes into ambiguity and experimenting with experiences that both scare me and excite me.

 

 Tasks accomplished 

• Completed a “Personal Baseline” assignment in which I went more into depth into my strengths discovered by taking the CliftonStrengths test.

• Completed weekly journal entries about leadership, resilience, and role models following the given prompt for that week.

• Led a discussion about the video “Purl” to talk about thoughts on video and message concerning imposter syndrome. 

• Announced a resilience activity outside my comfort circle to our class and completed it the timeframe of a week.

• Crafted a mini TED talk about pursuing your dreams.  

• Completed a vision board to visually map out my goals, dreams, and values. 

 

Leadership competencies gained

Self- Development: In this experience, I learned about building my resilience and focus on how to play to my strengths and utilizing them to grow into the best version of myself. I have navigated my college career in search of opportunities to develop myself into an ideal version of me. As a leader, I believe that it is important to be knowledgeable, aware of others, and opinions and reactions to global and local issues. I always felt that from a young age I was sheltered and shrouded in ignorance. In this class, I was exposed to several differing opinions, some that I was initially uncomfortable with. For instance, there was a peer that mentioned that her role model was Ivanka Trump and I immediately thought we wouldn’t get along. Yet, I saw the opportunity to develop my tolerance for opinions different to me own and to practice engaging with contrasting ideas. So I asked more about her role model and her childhood to understand her perspective. By the end of the quarter, I saw myself growing more accepting towards ideas challenging my beliefs and not taking things personally.

 

Helping others: In general, I don’t find it a burden to help others. How I view it is that so many have helped me get to where I am today. Many times, I am unsure how to help those who have supported me throughout this process so I pay it forward by giving back to the my community by helping peers with projects or giving them advice. The Women in Leadership class provided me the opportunity to practice helping others in a meaningful manner. Despite that the class already had a comfortable atmosphere where we could speak truthfully about issues, I knew that in helping others it would help them build trust in me and help me build that atmosphere into the Foster community.

 

Mentoring: Maybe I am not the tallest of all my cousins, but I am the oldest. As an only child, I have been blinding searching for the path that will help me achieve my goals, motivate my cousins, and others following in my footsteps. I am proud to be Latina and a First-Generation student yet, there are some setbacks as well. Not knowing which direction to go or who to turn towards is one of them. I have always been mindful of supporting my Hispanic community by empowering and advising the younger generations following in my footsteps. In this class I had the chance to have a mentor to help guide me through the variety of opportunities presented to me through the university and develop myself throughout the process. I also had the chance to mentor a fellow Hispanic peer helping me practice my listening skills. This opportunity helped me build the foundation to help enable others through mentorship.

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Productive relationships: When I first entered the class, I only knew one or two other people. Through active listening and engagement I was able to learn more about my peers throughout the quarter. I found that in sharing my stories as well, I was able to create meaningful connections with others helping me build trust. One example, is during my TED talk, I share my dream of creating my own automotive company and my parent’s negative reaction which I had never done before. This story helped others motivate me in pursuing that dream, but also motivated them to pursue their own aspirations. By the end of the quarter, I had made new friends and relationships with people that I still talk to and spend time with presently.

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Motivation: Some people throughout my life have told me that they appreciate my stories since it has helped motivate them. I was happy to assist them yet, still remained unsure of what my stories were motivating them to do. This class helped me understand the power of motivating others and how it can be utilized as a tool to inspire and empower others around us. For instance, after completing my TED talk in front of the class, many commented afterwards that they felt inspired to pursue their own dreams no matter how big. Others mentioned that they felt more comfortable talking about their dreams with others. In sharing my own dreams, I was able to motivate others to talk more about their own dreams or even actively pursue them.

 

Lessons learned & Future Orientated Statement

In the future, I see my self-development trait helping me achieve my goals since I will continuously be searching for opportunities to grow and wouldn't have to worry about staying stuck in one place. I believe that in order to be an effective leader one must be able to effectively motivate others. In practicing and developing these motivation skills earlier on, it will help me once I get my seat at the table. Also, practicing productive relationships will help me with my relationship building skills which is something that I am actively improving. This helps open doors to other opportunities I would have not known about otherwise. Lastly, the mentoring aspects will help me maintain my humility and learn about adventures in other people's lives.