A community is made up of many different individuals. The people of the community have different skills and interests. The Active Citizenship Continuum is a way to visualize different degrees of the people’s involvement in the community. This rates how a person falls along a spectrum and includes the categories “Member,” “Volunteer,” “Conscious Citizen,” and “Active Citizen.” The continuum is pictured above. It is important to know where you are on this spectrum and work towards moving forward on it. What makes an “Active Citizen” and Why are they important in our society? How can one be the best “Active Citizen” possible? It is important for “Active Citizens” to have good intentions. Most people will agree that a good “Active Citizen” doesn’t set out to make the lives of the people they serve more difficult. However, good intentions alone are not enough. In a speech given by Monsignor Ivan Illich to the Conference on Inter-American Student Projects (CIASP) in Cuernavaca, Illich says, “There is an Irish saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” The impact of their actions must match their intentions. One of the examples Illich references in his speech is to come to another country with cultural superiority. Coming in with the mindset that your way of life is the right way to live, and that just by the fact that you live in a privileged country you are automatically valuable and have something to offer poor people in other countries. Illich explains the fault in this sentiment: “the belief that any true American must share God's blessings with his poorer fellow men. The idea that every American has something to give, and at all times may, can and should give it.” A common result of this thought process is sending young American adults, who do not speak the language or understand the culture of the country they will work in, to teach English to foreigners. Just because you speak English doesn’t make you qualified to teach it. Another thing these hopeful service organizations have done is propose the same solutions that have worked in wealthier countries without thinking about how these solutions might translate to poor areas. One example of this is bringing baby formula into impoverished areas. Baby formula, for many people in countries like the United States, can be a great alternative to breastfeeding in situations where it’s not practical. Now regardless on where you stand in the breastfeeding/baby formula debate, you probably acknowledge that baby formula is expensive. For families with very meager income, this is an expense they cannot afford. In an article in the New York Times, Stephen Solomon wrote about the issues with selling infant formula to poor families. One woman came to a health clinic in Jamaica with her two infants who were incredibly malnourished. After speaking to her doctors discovered that she had not attempted to breastfeed them but had been using formula since they both had been born. However, the family only made about $7 a week in income, so the mother had been forced to dilute the expensive formula to make it last longer. Solomon wrote about her use of the formula, “one tin of feed should have lasted for something just under three days. She said that one tin of feed lasted two weeks to feed both of the children.” This clearly explains why both children were so severely underweight. Misuse of infant formula is incredibly dangerous and kills thousands of infants. Just because a solution works in privileged areas does not mean it will work everywhere. This isn’t the only attempt to do good which had an impact that did not match with its intentions. In an article from the guardian, Ian Birrell talks about a thriving business of drawing foreigners to help needy children in orphanages. This business thrives off guilt and a mostly genuine intention of helping others. However, this desire to help often out sizes the number and type of people who need this kind of help. So these businesses create places where needy children beg for things from foreigners. In the article Birrell writes this about children in these orphanages, “Those ‘orphans’ might have been bought from impoverished parents, coerced from loving families or simply rented for the night. An official study found just a quarter of children in these so-called orphanages have actually lost both parents.” Creating the need for service opportunities that people seem to want takes attention away from places that could actually benefit from the presence of these same volunteers. Perhaps it would be a better use of everyone’s time to try and support parents who can take care of and provide for their own children. Another mistake that we make is the when faced with problems like these we trust that a single person will come up with a solution, rally us behind the cause and make everything better. While this has happened in the past we live in a different time now. We have idolized our leaders and acted as though no one else could have accomplished what they did. This discourages people who feel compelled to act as it may seem that there is nothing they can do. It can be really easy to watch the news and blame politicians and other public figures for what we see as failure in society, but it’s another to decide yourself to try to take action and fix things. We need to take a careful look at the way we view social change. In his paper, Leadership to Citizenship, Peter Block writes, “There is a tendency to confuse speed with transformation. Just because I can exchange more information faster and faster does not mean that the content of our dialog of the nature of the way we recognize human effort has been shifted.” Just because an issue is being talked about doesn’t mean it’s being fixed. Constructive conversations about issues are almost always beneficial. But they can be harmful if they create the complacency that does not motivate change. One thought exercise about this idea is this picture: If someone asked you the question: How many boxes are in this picture? You would probably look at this box and see a 4 x 4 grid, so there are 16 squares. But isn’t this also a box? And so is this? Are there 16 boxes in that picture? Yes. Are there more than 16 boxes in that picture? Also yes. 16 isn’t wrong, but when you saw sixteen you stopped thinking about the issue and you assumed you’d found the answer. One great example of this is disabled persons’ access to public space. A lot of changes have been made to public spaces in recent years, most of the changes have been good. But there are some of them that on closer inspection don’t serve their purpose or really help the people they were concerned with. One mind-boggling example only occurred to me recently. If you look at the vending machines on Campus, you’ll probably notice that any of them that have a numbered keypad to choose your item have brail on keys. Which looks cool and seems progressive until you realize that to order what you want and know what those numbers mean, you have to look through the glass and see what number the item goes with. This is actually useless!
Another one to consider is wheelchair routes and ramps. All wheelchair routes on the academic side of campus are relatively easy to find and navigate and they are even labeled with well-kept signs. However, the sidewalk that runs along West Campus Drive, on the hill between the Duck Pond and Litton Reeves, is considered to be a “wheelchair route.” This is ridiculous. I used to ride my bike up it on my way to class. One day I passed my academic advisor on the sidewalk at the top of the hill when I on was my bike. She was shocked that I had ridden my bike up all the way up the hill. Most people I see would rather walk their bikes up then ride. These bikes have built in features to make going up hills easier and yet most people won’t dot it. That's how steep this hill is. After a conversation with a friend, we agreed that you would need the arm strength of the incredible Hulk to get up that hill with a non-electric wheelchair. This hill should not be marked as a wheelchair route because it it’s a practical one This idea seems ridiculous, now that you know it, but you probably wouldn’t have noticed if I didn’t point it out. Furthermore, just because action is being taken doesn’t mean it’s the best solution. These approaches to service all have one thing in common which is focusing on the needs of a community and trying to figure out what can be brought into the community to meet them. This takes away the necessity of the community to address their own issues and use their own resources. The point of community improvement is to work yourself out of a job not to provide your organization with rock solid job security. These “outside in” programs depend on external resources for maintenance and create a dependency on outsiders to meet basic needs. This is not to say that struggling communities shouldn’t be helped, it’s that we should help them help themselves. In their essay, Asset-Based Community Development, John Kretzman and John P. McKnight wrote, “The key to neighborhood regeneration, then is to locate all of the available assets, to begin connecting them with one another in ways that multiply their power and effectiveness, and to begin harnessing those local institutions that are not yet available for local development purposes.” They go on to write about how people in these communities will be more invested when they become more involved. These solutions are also more sustainable since they don’t require outside help. It’s important to understand what exactly makes an “Active Citizen.” An active citizen is someone who recognizes a problem or issue and goes above and beyond to fix it. Active citizens do have a tendency to call attention to themselves, so you probably know someone who is one, but they also don’t do what they do just because they want attention. They have relevant skills and are knowledgeable of the local area, the issues, and the people they work with. They determine their goals and rally others to accomplish these goals. On the spectrum, it can be difficult to tell the difference between a “Conscious Citizen” and an “Active Citizen,” but one thing that really sets them apart is action. A “Conscious Citizen” is knowledgeable about issues, and thinks critically about solutions, but an “Active Citizen” takes steps to implement these solutions. This means an “Active Citizen” needs a team behind them, which most likely made up of a mix of all other stages of the spectrum. The distinction between an “Active Citizen” and a “Conscious Citizen,” is taking action or working in the solving the problem. It’s not impossible, but it’s less likely that those on the lower levels of the spectrum will take action to solve problems and create opportunities in the same ways. “Active Citizens” pave the way for others to become aware of and move along the spectrum. It was probably even an active citizen who came up with the spectrum. Virginia Tech promotes service which fosters an environment where people can move along the continuum. There are a lot of great examples of groups and organizations that exemplify these values. One example is the Serve Living Learning Community (LLC). Being a member of Serve LLC has given me a lot of opportunities to learn about different social issues and move along the spectrum. It was a really good experience to live with other people who made serving others a priority. I not only was encouraged to participate in service regularly, but also engaged in conversations with my classmates about the importance of service, but also about how to serve in ways that create lasting and positive impact. I learned so much about aspects of service to which I previously hadn’t given much thought. I wondered how many other students were having this types of conversations. Religious organizations on campus are also a great way to find and learn about service opportunities. Service is an integral part of most religions, so it’s not surprising that a lot of service is driven by religious organizations. This is a great way to find people gathered under one roof that are passionate about service and participate in different service activities. If you're not religious, there are plenty of other groups that also have a focus on service. VT engage is a great example of this. They offer lots of opportunities to serve through events and even overnight trips. Because this is open to all students, there is the opportunity to interact with other students you might not have met otherwise. This happens somewhat naturally if a student takes the initiative to pursue it. Virginia Tech has without a doubt fostered many active citizens who moved along the spectrum during their time here, but it’s not as widespread as it could be. A lot of really cool stuff goes on at Virginia Tech, especially in service. But for most students, this information is tucked out of sight and out of mind, and unless you know exactly what you are looking for, finding information about these groups and events can be difficult. It can be really easy for students, especially younger students, to get so caught up in their class work that they don’t take advantage of the opportunities around them. Making service experiences mandatory might help for some, but will not help the majority of people. Systematically introducing conversations about service, how it should be done and why it’s important will create a more lasting impact. This way it will be easier for students to engage others in discussion of service even after they have left Virginia Tech. If they do participate in service while at Virginia Tech their service will be more meaningful and informed. Maybe have an event similar to The Big Event to talk about service. This might include speakers, discussion groups, booths and other activities. The goal of such an event would be to create interest and encourage discussion and critical thought. We could encourage RAs to have this kind of conversations with their residents. We could also make classes, like the one I took as a part of Serve, more easily accessable or maybe even mandatory. The key is to have more students engaged with these ideas of service intentionally instead of relying on chance. One really helpful tool to talk about this with is the Active Citizenship Continuum. Where am I on the active citizenship continuum? It seems like a simple question but I struggle to give a really concrete answer. I have definitely moved along the continuum through many of my service experiences. I feel I have made progress along it in some areas but in other areas, I feel like I’m pretty close to where I started. I sometimes wonder if I place myself further along the spectrum than my experience really allows for, or if maybe I’m doing better than I think I am. I also think I often mistakenly align progress in the continuum with the amount of leadership experience. While I do believe the continuum becomes more important as someone moves up in leadership and influence, it’s not an indicator of progress. I remember how I first became involved in the spectrum. My first volunteer work started in my church and my youth group. We made pies for Thanksgiving, chili for Super Bowl Sunday and sold them to raise money for other projects our church does. We worked with a soup kitchen that was close by. This is really when I was a “Member,” I didn’t do things because I really thought I was helping people that much or because I really understood the ramifications of my actions or even the problems I was supposed to be solving. I was just doing it because I thought it was fun. It’s hard to say when I made the switch from “Member” to “Volunteer,” although it probably happened sometime around my freshman or sophomore year of high school. I took part in the Appalachian Service Project (ASP) in the summer of 2008. It was probably the first time that it really hit me that service is not just a thing you do because it’s good or because it’s fun. I saw first hand the effects my service had on the people I had served in a way that I hadn’t before. When we had made soup for the soup kitchen, I never got to see the people who actually ate the soup and I never pictured their lives as being that different from mine. When I met the woman whose house we were working on, I realized that our lives were in fact very different. I was able to see the impact the improvements we made to her house had on her. She was a recovering drug addict who wanted her house to be in good enough shape that her children could live with her. At the end of most work days, her other family members who lived nearby would come to see the progress we’d made. They seemed so excited about the idea of her having a better house. Since this first experience, I have been back five more times. I have learned more and more about the people ASP helps, what their lives are like and what social problems they face. In this area, I would like to consider myself a “Conscientious Citizen.” This is an area I think about and learn about whenever I can. I would like to become an “Active Citizen”. I have applied to work this coming summer as an ASP staff member because I am seeking a longer experience as an employment opportunity. This will be the beginning of my “Active Citizenship” with much potential to grow in this role. I would like to improve my knowledge of other social issues. Many of the opportunities I was excited to take part in as a college student are not what I thought they were. Mainly going overseas to provide health services for areas that don't have good medical infrastructure. My Community Engagement class has really changed the way I look at opportunities. Healthcare, overall, has its own social problems and other conflicts. Since I am considering a career in Healthcare I am trying my best to educate myself on these issues. As a “Conscientious Citizen” I am learning about the social problems and issues in this area and thinking critically about possible solutions. On the one hand, the current state of the American Healthcare system is really frustrating and intimidating, but on the other hand, I know that wherever I end up I will be ready to face that challenge. At this point in history, medicine overall is changing in so many ways. I would like to seek volunteer opportunities in the healthcare industry to improve my awareness of these issues. As I continue in my education, I hope to improve my awareness through both materials from my classes and experience in the service. When I move into the workforce I plan to move along the Active Citizenship Continuum. Active Citizenship is important to the functioning of a community on a global, local and personal level. “Active Citizens” need more than just good intensions; they need to think critically about issues and solutions, be aware of the impacts of their actions, make sure discussions about issues lead to action, and use the assets of the community they are helping to make changes. “Active Citizens” create opportunities for others to progress on the spectrum. There are lots of opportunities at Virginia Tech to move along the spectrum, but discussions about service need to be more intentional. I have made progress on my journey along the spectrum and strive to continue to improve and work toward being an “Active Citizen.”
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I don’t really like the question “When do you feel most alive?” I think that this makes it seem like only the really exciting part of your life are the parts that make you who you are. That isn’t true, even the small everyday things can really shape you are a person. Also a lot of people will give the career or life advice of “finding the thing that makes you feel alive.” I think this is misleading, and makes it harder to figure out what it is you love because of your sky high expectations. (*Note when I say you, I’m actually talking about me, please don’t point it out, it’s too late to turn back now) Moving past this idea helped me learn some really important things about passions. Just because you love something, doesn’t mean it’s easy, doesn’t mean that it isn’t work. Just because you love something, doesn’t mean you’ll love it all the time. I’ve figure out the hard way that just because you like something doesn’t mean it’s a reward or a break. You can’t reward work with more work. Just because you love something doesn’t mean other people will love it too.
So despite my distaste I am going to attempt to answer the question anyway. I believe that the times I feel most alive are the times when I am most challenged. I remember times of feel alive when even though I might not have wanted to because I was tired, unsure, or scared, I did my best. The first example of this that comes to mind is actually a story I told in a college essay. The summer after my freshman year of high school I went on a trip through my church with Appalachian Service Project. On this trip we worked to make people’s houses warmer, safer, and dryer. On the work site my team was on, we were doing work on the roof. Now I should probably preface by saying that I am terrified of heights. When I was really little I wouldn’t even go up and down certain stairwells by myself. Even today, I hate elevators with glass. So we were working on a tin roof of a trailer, the kind that are not know to be very sturdy. So another girl, Anna, and I were picked to go up because we were the lightest. I really wanted to do this but I was really scared I’d embarrass myself. I’d attempted to be brave in this area before and been utterly humiliated. They set up the ladder and I went up first, regretting my choice with every rung on the ladder. I feared once I got up I would be too afraid to climb back down. Anna stood on the ladder and handed the supplies up to me on the roof. My hands were shaking, and I was very careful to look only at Anna’s hands and face to keep from looking down. My head was spinning; I couldn’t believe I was actually going through with this. As soon as we had all of our supplies, the rest of our team went back around the house to work on the porch. We learned that we both like corny jokes and after a few minutes, conversation came easily. I found that it was much better if I looked out to the treetops instead of looking down at the grass. The more time we spent up there, the more comfortable I felt. After an hour and a half we ran out of paint, so we came back down to cool off. About five minutes after coming down, I was possessed by this urge to climb back up the ladder onto the roof. I felt just as uncomfortable on ground as I had when I first climbed up on the roof. With shaking hands, I walked to the ladder and climbed back up. There was no reason for me to be there but I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. This is the moment when I felt alive. I looked out and I could see farther than I ever could from on the ground. I had done that thing that I was afraid to do and I felt so proud. Volunteering has many positive attributes. It is encouraged and supported by lot of organizations and for a good reason. Done well, volunteering can be incredibly impactful both on those who are served and those who serve. However, the repercussions of volunteer work done poorly can have devastating effects. Volunteers receive criticism as a result. Their critics say volunteer serve for the wrong reasons, that volunteer don’t do good quality work, and that their efforts don’t have a lasting impact. Volunteers can, with critical thought, can overcome these criticisms and better serve the communities they volunteer in.
It’s easy to think that the reasons volunteers serve really don’t matter. If there is work to be done all you really need is people willing to do it. Despite work needing to be done, the reasons we serve really do matter because they effect the ways we serve and the decisions we make when we serve. It’s very easy to assume that everyone who volunteers does so for the right reasons, they want to help makes people’s lives better, that they have hearts of gold, or whatever you think is the right reason. Not every volunteer is like this. Just like any other community, volunteers are made up of a large and diverse group who were drawn to volunteer by just as many and diverse reasons. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, the reasons are important. People volunteer to help others, to strengthen their communities, and to feel good about themselves. When our motivation to serve is more “self serving” that is reflected in our work. People who want to help others tend to seek out who needs the most help. The decision of who needs or who deserves help is a difficult and complex question. It’s not a bad question exactly but the way way we answer it can involve a lot of bias. One example of is in animal and wildlife conservation and it’s called “the Disney effect.” This causes money and promotional campaigns to focus on saving only the cute and fluffy animals. This diverts attention and money away from animals like sharks and many strange other looking marine animals or even annoying but still influential species like bees. We can see this in charity towards humans as well. Who do we think is most deserving of our service? Who do we blame for poverty? We are more willing to help the people who we think work hard and are worthy of our efforts. We want to help people who will show the most improvement in quality of life with the least amount of effort on our part. Unfortunately, this often excludes the people who need help the most. A person who wants to strengthen their own community may not want to help someone who is not a part of that community. This is another distinction that is both difficult and complicated to make. Is your community the town that you live in, people who live like you, people who look like you, people who speak that same language as you? Where does your community really start and end? The way that we serve matters too. When you think of someone who is in need, do you think of them as desperate? Do you think they will be lucky to get and take whatever they can get? This is a widespread and perpetuated idea that “Beggars can’t be choosers.” Does that mean we should give them garbage and expect them to be happy? If policies about quality of work, safety or training required are more lax than you think they should be, how does this play a role in your work? If as a volunteer, you were trying to fix someone’s house would you put in the same effort and consideration as you would for your house? Probably not. But it’s not your house, and you’re not getting paid, so how much effort is appropriate? In this situation I’ve worked with people who are contractors struggle with this issue. We worked in West Virginia with contractors that lived and work in New Jersey. West Virginia has very lax construction code laws in comparison to New Jersey. This makes structures, in some cases, likelier to be compromised sooner. We want these houses to be strong and safe for the families that live in them for as long as possible, so do we build based on stricter code? Following stricter code, however, is more difficult and in a majority of cases more expensive. This would mean fewer houses could be fixed overall as each project would require more materials. If you unsure what I’m talking about think of spindles on a railing. New Jersey law might require them to be no more than 3 inches apart while West Virginia allows them to be up to 6 inches apart. A smaller distance between spindles requires more spindles and more wood. But, more spindles allow the railing to support more weight placing less strain on each spindle making the railing less compromised if only one of them is broken. Another example to think about is the taking medical or nursing student who have not yet completed their training to foreign countries to gain experience in procedures that would be illegal in the US. Just because people live in less privileged areas does make them guinea pigs for medical and nursing students to practice on. Finally, does our service have positive, sustainable, and lasting impact? The best kind of volunteers will work themselves out of a job. They will create a world where their work is no longer needed. A metaphor for this idea is CPR. When someone is choking the first and most important thing to do is to send some to get a defibrillator and call 911. You do this before you begin to assess vital sign or begin CPR. Why is this important? Because CPR on it’s own doesn’t save lives. CPR keeps airflow into lungs and blood circulating. But unless someone with better, long term solution is on their way, CPR is completely pointless. You can’t give someone CPR forever. A short-term solution without lasting impact on a community is almost worse than not serving at all. One consequence is that when people see a community being helped by volunteers they may assume that the problems is solved and a solution has been reached but that almost always isn’t the case. We want to be sure that a community stepping up to help people in need should not be the end of the discussion about these people’s issues or needs. One example of this is food insecurity in America. Churches and other organizations open food banks and have food drives to help ease the strain of hunger on their communities. This is a good and generous thing, but does this solve, for the long run, anyone’s problems? Unfortunately, the answer is no. To really tackle these kinds of large scale problems we need to assess their root causes. Regardless of what you think causes this, low minimum wage, unemployment, or high cost of food, it’s changes in these areas that will solve the problem not food banks. Long-term problems do still need short term solutions but short term solutions cannot replace long-term solution and should not end discussions about long-term solutions. Just because volunteering isn’t perfect, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. It just means that you should approach it critically and with care just as you do other aspects of your life like your job or your education. By keeping these criticisms in mind we can be involved in service that is aware of motivation, does good work, and has a lasting impact. So nothing really leaps out when I think about this. So I guess I’ll tell 3 smaller stories to fill the word count. So I have Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder or as it’s most often called ADHD. Many of the initial studies of people with ADHD were based on 12-year-old males. Based on these flawed studies the first diagnostic was written. Because of this roughly 3 boys are diagnosed for every girl diagnosed. Statistically, girls tend to have different symptoms than boys, which effects the rates at which they are diagnosed. Also these symptoms are often approached differently. My mom still to this day will deny that I have a hyperactivity problem, because I’m not “hyper enough.” Because I can sit still for hours at a time I can’t possibly have this issue, which I think is unfair. The standard stencil for which most people are diagnosed excluded based on age, gender, and race. This in itself created an issue. Also people love to talk about how ADD/ADHD are over diagnosed. There could be a lot more diagnoses now that we understand it more and have been willing to look past a single story that more cases in girls and adults are being diagnosed. Furthermore, I think this “epidemic” could be cause by misdiagnosis of other things. Conditions such as Depression or Anxiety can display similar symptoms to ADHD, as anyone who has these conditions will typically also display some level of inattention. I saw another TED talk where a girl talked about her experience with her autism. She decided to google people with autism are and let google complete the sentence. I was inspired and decided to do the same. I the results were not inspiring. Now I no that this is also isn’t the only story, but it really doesn’t offer much hope.
I’ve also found that since I’ve started college studying a hard science people treat me a little differently when I tell them what I am studying. One of my close friends that I met my freshman year, later told me that, based on my appearance and demeanor, I came off as more of an English major or liberal arts type and that’s why people acted strangely when I said I was in science. The instance that stands out the most to me was when I went to Rutgers to set up my accommodations I was chatting with an advisor and an intern before delving into the details. They asked me what class I was taking and I told them Calculus 2. They were both like “That’s awful” and “I’m so sorry.” So I said “No, it’s not a big deal. I mean I liked Calculus 1 but I’m more of a chemistry/physics person. I’m excited to get my last math department math class out of the way.” After I said that they both stared at me like I was crazy. There was no small talk from then on. It was all business. They did, however, tell me that they were both History majors. They acted like we could have nothing in common because of my interest in science. I also mostly feel that people take me a little more seriously. And in a way I feel like I need to act more seriously, like sit up a little straighter or whatever. One of the things that I’ve been struggling with probably since before I came to college but it’s become so much more evident now that I’m in college. I realized and assumption that I had and it was really effecting how I was making friends. When I interact with new people I assumed that they didn’t want to or need to be my friend because they all ready had friends. Don’t get me wrong I’m not at all mad that my friends have other friends. I’m just scared that they will decide they don’t need me because they have other friends. It’s weird because a part of the statement is true. Most of the people I have met and will every meet will have other friends. But the second part of that statement, that they don’t need me because they have other friends is not at all based in fact. One of the funny things, I think, about my strengths is that they are often contradictory. One of my teachers in high school once told me that I was the calmest, most focused person she knew. I think this is absolutely hilarious because I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder. I believe something important to consider when thinking about other people’s assets and strength is that things are rarely what they appear to be. Often people’s greatest strengths are connected to their biggest weaknesses. These are the things they struggle with by nature, are forced to face repeatedly and put effort into most likely on a regular basis. In many cases this causes them to become strengths.
It took me a little bit of the time to really understand my strengths finder results. Now that I do I’m pretty happy with them. My fifth strength, which at first I was angry that it was not higher up, is Learner. I’d probably say it’s my favorite of my five strengths. I proudly call myself a Ravenclaw. I love learning new things, even if they are not seen as “useful” in the long run, I love learning for learning sake. This makes me enthusiastic to learn about the issues that communities face and how I can learn new skills to help them. I am a patient attentive listener and enthusiastic participant. One of my other skill is Strategic. This means I am really good at creative problem solving. My enthusiasm for learning allows me to look both at the big picture and in the minor details for solutions. I am very direct in my communication style and am comfortable giving and receiving criticism when it comes to alternative plans. The tree questions I almost always ask myself first when facing a problem is “What do I need? What can I do? What do I have?” This logic can also be extended to large groups facing a problem. Another one of my strengths is Connectedness. This is my top strength. This is another one that I didn’t understand right away. I thought it was feeling connected to other people, which I sometimes struggle with, but it’s actually making connections between ideas. This, I think for me, is particularly forthcoming when it comes to problem solving. One part of the description stands out to me, “Chances are good that you sense that everything in life is somehow interrelated and interdependent. This idea steels – that is, fortifies – you to calmly face most of life’s challenges and difficulties. Driven by your talents, you may be able to accept unpredictable events in your life on the sheer basis of faith.” This really speaks to me. My third strength is Belief. Now this is one I struggled with a little bit. I am religious or at least I try to be, but I feel like that’s not why this ended up in my top five strengths. It made so much more sense when I read the paragraph explanation about Belief. It talks about wanting to help people and make their lives better. The description talks about working tirelessly toward these goals. The statement that stands out most to me is “You are hardwired to isolate the issues that lie ahead.” Which resonates with me lately because I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about and stressing about my future, academically, professionally and personally. My fourth strength is Developer. This means I can and want to see the strengths of others. I want to help them discover develop these strengths. I try to find something that I like about everyone I know or meet. For most people it’s actually not that hard. There are some though that require lots of searching and thought, but I am up to the challenge. It genuinely excites me to see other succeed, which makes me a great cheerleader. I do think this is another strong component of my overall enthusiasm that I bring to nearly everything that I do. I believe that the things I do and say matter and have lasting impact. Another thing I really pride myself on though it’s not one of my strength is my impulse to continually improve in everything that I do and in all areas of my life. I am from toys and diapers
from saturday cartoons and watch-your-sister (get you two a snack and start on your homework) I am from dance recitals, football games, and please-eat-your-vegetables I am from children's night lights and reading the textbook by their glow doing homework on the bus in the church, in the car I am from study just-a-little-bit-longer I am from singing in the car, in rehearsal, in the shower I am from read the music, play the notes, sing louder, more vibrato, watch your tone I am from a lot of things I am from test tubes, hot plates, and lab coats But I am also from work boots, table saw, and ladders And I am from flags, smiles, and hairspray I am from supportive family Value of education And high expectation I am from work, work, work From do it better than you think it needs to be one I am from love for who you are the way you are From hugs that feel like a visit to the chiropractor's office From ask you how you’re doing And really listen to what you say I am from trustworthy confident No judgement No blame I am from leave it better than you found it Be respectful If it need to be done, you could do it -I can talk about my experiences. I can get people involved who might not otherwise known about this problem. I can volunteer again in a different way.
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AuthorMy name is Paige Dinneny. I am a sophomore at Virginia Tech and a first year member of SERVE. Archives
December 2016
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