Leadership is one of the three competency areas of the Honors Program that we need to develop and improve during our time in the Honors Program. The concept of leadership for me is someone who guides a group of people in doing work, by connecting and not just giving orders and looking at how the other people do the job without offering help. Someone who wants to develop leadership skills must be open-minded, helpful, and cheerful. By having these characteristics, they can lead a team with great values and strength toward a common goal. As far as me as a person, I am someone who values fairness in the workplace, everyone should get what they work for. I am cheerful and I have a sense of humor because no work is done without joy. I want everyone to feel welcome in the workplace and enjoy what assignments and tasks they have to finish with responsibility. Understanding what leadership means, makes it easier for me to develop leadership skills, which I will be using in my future workplace, and it will have a huge impact on how I communicate and set boundaries with people in a professional environment.

 

I was given an incredible opportunity to join the Health PROs (Health Peers Reaching Out) organization on campus. During the Fall of 2022, I was looking for volunteer opportunities on campus. I had a meeting with my advisor and she suggested that I apply for the Health PROs organization on campus, which would be a great chance for me to be more involved on campus and make meaningful connections. I have been part of this student volunteer organization since the Fall of 2022. This organization is coordinated through the Health Education Office. We, as student volunteers, reach out and help other students get informed about the health and wellness decisions we make during college. We do this by offering fun and interactive educational outreach on campus. This was the first student organization I had been part of since I came to the United States, and it was an exciting experience for me. I was able to help and guide my peers regarding a variety of health topics that are relevant to today’s college students such as for example: how to eat more healthily, being able to manage stress, have healthy sleep, drink responsibly, and safer sex tips including contraception and STIs information. As an organization, we would meet twice a week, once for office hours and once for the group meeting to discuss all our duties for that week.

 

Being part of Health PROs helped me develop my teamwork skills, dedication, and effective communication, but also helped me use my strengths of responsibility and restorative which I identified when completing the Strength Finder inventory. While being part of the Health PROs, I was pushing my boundaries and getting out of my comfort zone. Before coming to the United States, I used to be a shy and quiet person, because I felt a lot of pressure from my community to not express myself or show what I was capable of doing. Most importantly, since I was raised in a Muslim household, I had been taught to not talk about sex-related topics in public. Being part of the Minnesota State University community allowed me to join this organization and look at the world from a different perspective. As a member of Health PROs, I was able to give some presentations in different health classes, specifically HLTH 101 (Health and the Environment) and HLTH 212(Consumer Health). Three or four students from Health PROs would present in class and give demonstrations on how to properly use contraceptives and condoms for safer sex. The presentation usually lasts for 45 minutes or the whole class period. We shared our duties for the presentation like who was going to demonstrate the use of contraceptives and condoms, who was going to present the Kahoot game, and who was going to answer the questions from the audience (students). The whole organization of the duties each one of us had to do for a perfect presentation, was made by our top leader, Lori Harvey. She was the one who gave us all the proper instructions and separated our duties before the presentation started, so the whole thing would go smoothly.

 

The fun part of these presentations is that we would present Kahoot games and quizzes at the end of the presentation of all the information that we mentioned during the presentation, and I can say proudly that more than 80% of the students in the class would get the answers correct. By doing these fun quizzes at the end of our presentations, I understood that we were increasing our knowledge of today’s health issues that college students face. At the beginning of my first presentation, I was feeling a little nervous because it was my first time presenting to a large group of people. With the help of my other Health PROs members, I was able to go through the Kahoot questions, which was my duty for that specific presentation, without messing them up and I felt confident at the end of the presentation. Being responsible for that part of the presentation, made me feel under pressure, because I was scared I would mess up and I might give students false information. In the end, everything went smoothly, I was able to overcome my fear because I feel excited every time I have responsibilities, which makes me more focused on my job. I enjoy working with other people because I can show my knowledge and capacity for these health issues since I am a health-related major. I also enjoy being part of a fun group of students who share the same interests as me in today’s issues related to college students.

 

I was also able to overcome one of my weaknesses which was talking to a big group of people. I used to get anxious in the first presentations and I was scared people would lose attention and focus due to my clumsiness, but after a while, I got the hang of it, and I felt confident in myself. When I did my second presentation after a month of being part of this organization, I was feeling more confident and I was able to answer a lot more questions from the audience (students). I want to be able to put the knowledge I possess about how to be a great leader to use in my future at my place of employment while working as a Health Educator and also while working at my internship. I already had hand-to-hand experience on how to be able to manage this, while volunteering for this health organization on campus.

 

I would also like to be able to share with other international students here on campus my experience as a Muslim girl from a small country, like Albania, which made it possible to speak up professionally while keeping boundaries about today’s health issues around college students. I plan to continue to grow my leadership skills by taking more leadership courses during my undergraduate years, so I can keep improving my speaking and training skills and learn strategies that I will be using in my place of employment in the future. As I pursue more leadership courses and continue improving my public speaking skills, I will be able to commit to my goals. As I was integrated into the volunteer health organization, I will focus on clear communication and goal-setting. Everyone on the team needs to have a shared understanding of the project’s or presentation's objectives and their roles and responsibilities. I would strive to create a collaborative and inclusive team culture where everyone’s contributions are valued and encouraged in, the same way that my leaders made me feel welcome in the organization and the same way I, as a leader, made everyone feel welcome while I was presenting. Effective communication would be the key to building these types of rapport with my patients in the future, where I would be able to explain treatment plans and goals, while also being able to manage multiple clients and tasks at once.

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