REFLECTION
What an incredible experience this has been. There are so many things to be learned in a position of leadership that can be taken to any corner of life.
#1: The best kind of leader, leads by example.
I noticed that the most important way I could get the tour guides to be their best, was by me working to be my best. If I did what I could to take extra tours or learn more about SUU, others would be much more willing to do it. If I just said, "take more tours" I would have a lot more hesitation in return.
#2: Hands on teaching is key.
Something huge that I noticed while training my ambassadors is that they remembered the most
when I took them to the building or had a professor give an engaging presentation. This is so essential for me to cary on as a future educator. I'm going to by teaching these students information that I want them to retain. After learning with my ambassadors, I can work hard to make sure my teaching is engaging and hands on.
#3: A leader can also be led.
As the leader of tours, people would often ask, "Does that mean you are the best tour guide?" The answer is DEFINITELY NOT! Something that I loved about my position is that I was able to shadow other people give tours and see how they did things. I was able to learn from every single person. Often times, I would ask what others recommend in certain scenarios so that I could improve my tours. It was two fold. The person I was asking would feel of value. Also, my tours would get better because I would take their advice. It was so important to me that I never acted smarter, better, or higher than anyone else on the team. After all, every one of us had the same goal.
#4: Knowledge is gained from assessment.
Something extremely beneficial to me that I didn't expect to gain at all was doing the assessment. Assessment in education is critical. In fact, there is an entire course on how to assess students. It didn't occur to me that I would be able to practice these things that I learned throughout my project. Yet, I was wrong. I was able to create an assessment using all my knowledge from education. I was able to make sure the assessment achieved my goal. I was also able to grade and gather information on what I needed to reteach based on my assessment scores. It was such an incredible real life scenario were I was able to practice what I would need to excel at in a career as a teacher.
Overall, being the Vice President of Campus Tours was A LOT of work. Yet the value of my experience completely exceeds that time I spent doing it. I learned much more than I can even write down in words. Just the feeling of success coming from my own work is incredible.