Reflection 1

Madison Schaefer Professor Michelle Kusel ELPS 223 001 September 9, 2018 Reflection 1: Pre-Reflection When I look back at my freshman year at Loyola and contemplate who I was and compare it to the person I am today, I am overcome with gratitude. Although I lost myself for a bit during my first year at Loyola, I realize, in retrospect, I had to lose myself in order to come back a stronger and better version of me. I owe much of this regained confidence to my position as a Peer Advisor for First and Second Year Advising because it provided a community of people like me who love leadership, enjoy public speaking, and thrive in helping others. I am excited to have already begun my second year as a Peer Advisor this semester, giving me the title of a Returner. Having had experience in this role previously, I am enthused to come into this year already possessing the knowledge needed for success in my position and knowing ways, based on feedback from my students and advisors previously, that I can be a better Peer Advisor for both groups respectively. My goals for this year involve being more engaging for my students both inside and outside the classroom and I hope to take more initiative in the relationship between myself and my advisor. I fear, however, that due to my busy schedule of eighteen credit hours, working as a tutor in the Writing Center, and trying to stay involved in my sorority that I will not feel the efficacy to improve upon areas I felt I neglected in my previous experience.

When I reflect upon how leadership impacts the Peer Advising organization, it is very apparent how important but also confusing and multi-faceted it is. Every single member of the Peer Advising team is a leader in one way or another. Whether it be our program directors, the Lead Peer Advisors, Instructors, Returning Peer Advisors or new Peer Advisors, all have a role that involves leadership at some capacity ranging from facilitating UNIV 101 classes to legitimating how the organization is run. The fact that leadership is seen on each level of the program could make it easier to identify how leadership works in my organization or, it could actually make it more difficult as it is such a complex web of leadership dynamics. Additionally, I feel it may be challenging for me personally to apply what I learn about leadership in this class to my role as this is not an entirely new position for me and thus, I am comfortable in doing what I know works best. I hope to strengthen my skills in adaptability and flexibility in order to try to implement ideas or concepts from the class to my real-world experience with leadership. Once I do gain this willingness for personal change, in application, I need to remain aware of the challenge to not step on the toes or negatively impact my colleagues due to trying to apply new leadership ideology to my role. In remaining respectful of others’ resistance to change and considerate in not doing too much, I hope to overcome this challenge. The only major concern I had with the course and internship was the conflict between my weekly Peer Advising staff meetings and the scheduled class time for the course. Thankfully it has been resolved as my supervisor was kind enough to allow me to miss our meetings when our class meets the handful of times it does throughout the semester. However, because I am missing a commitment of my Peer Advising role to attend class, I do want to get as much out of it as I can. Through the experience I have had in the Leadership Studies Minor, I have learned

that I greatly value genuine discussion in my classes among my peers and instructor as I feel it makes the often concrete ideas of leadership much more real and applicable. In relation to that, I hope that in each discussion and in reflecting on every reading, emphasis is placed on relating the learning outcomes of the assignment or class period back to our internship sites. I really am looking forward to watching myself grow in my position as a Returner Peer Advisor thanks to all I will be learning throughout this course. I know this will come to fruition as, thanks to my involvement in the Leadership Minor thus far, I have most definitely seen a shift in my outlook on and execution of leadership, for the better.