Summer

This summer not only will I be working full time at Dana Farber, but I will also be working part time at my old job. This is going to be one of the busiest summers of my life, and I am going to have to find moments of freedom and really take advantage of those. It is my last summer before I graduate college and I want to be able to enjoy as much of it as I can. I feel like this is very possible, as long as I learn to enjoy the small moments in life, and don't try and dwell on the things I'll be missing out on. I know that this summer is very important, and that it could have a huge impact on the rest of my career. I am planning on taking full advantage of every opportunity that I can find. I am hoping that I can leave a good impression at Dana Farber and maybe go back and work there once I graduate. I am not planning on treating this as an internship, but rather a job that I am looking to keep for awhile. I want to be able to impress all those who I am working for and with, and I want them to be able to rely on me right off the back. I am going to volunteer for as many things as possible. I want to meet as many people as I can and get my foot in the door in a lot of different areas. I also hope to keep in touch with some of my classmates so that we can compare experiences and root each other on. Best of luck to everyone else :)

End of an Era

Tomorrow I am moving out of Durham for the summer. I have been packing all weekend and it is making me more sad than any of the other years I've moved out. This is because every year since I came to school here I have lived with my best friend from home. We shared a dorm room freshman year, just the two of us, last year we shared an apartment with four of our friends, and this year we shared an apartment just the two of us. However, next year we have decided not to live together. We didn't do it because we weren't getting along. We did it because we have different priorities. She wanted to be somewhere in the middle of everything, where nightlife is easily accessible to her. I wanted to be somewhere quieter, where I have more privacy. Over the last year I have made two really great new friends who understand that side of me in a way my old roommate and best friend do not. I am living with them in the lodges next year and I am so excited. I am really nervous and upset to leave my best friend though. I have never lived on my own without her before. We know the way the other works. We know how to not step on the other's toes, and we work well together for the most part. This is going to be a big step for both of us in stepping out of our comfort zones. I'll be interested to see how I adapt.

Giving Back

Today is known as the Giving Day, for the American Red Cross Association. I am a member of the American Red Cross Club here on campus, and I am a nationally recognized volunteer. This week we have been running a blood drive in the MUB which I have been volunteering for. I help people make donation appointments, and make sure they are feeling well after they donate. I recruited my roommate to join the club this year as well. She has been really great at just jumping right into things. At the blood drive yesterday she dressed up as the Mascot, the blood drop, and walked around the MUB encouraging people to donate. She looked absolutely ridiculous, but she was having fun and I admired her for that. Today she decided that she wanted to donate blood herself, and I was shocked. This was very out of character for her, but all she could take about is how its something so small and easy that she can do, and that it is so important to others. One donation at a blood drive can save up to three people's lives. I have been a member of this club since the beginning of last year, and I have never been able to work up the courage to donate. I recently got a tattoo also, so I won't be eligible to donate until next year. After watching Carly do it and see how happy it made her, I think she inspired me to do it next year. No matter how scared you are nothing can beat the satisfaction that you get knowing that an hour of your time will save three people's lives. I encourage everyone to think about donating, or at least volunteer with the Red Cross. They are an outstanding organization and I a, very proud to be apart of it.
   
                                 

Crunch Time

It is the first day of the last two weeks of school. Only eight more days of classes, and while that feels great to be able to say, these eight days are going to be rough. There are so many assignments due, and they are all extremely important, time consuming ones. The difficult part of the next two weeks is going to be trying to figure out what things to prioritize. I have always struggled with this, as I can never decide what is more important, because everything is important! I did some research and found an article on the liquidplanner website, which was kind of helpful. It outlines six steps that are designed to help you when trying to organize and prioritize task. They go as follows:

1.Collect a list of all your tasks.
2. Identify urgent vs. important
3. Assess value.
4. Order tasks by estimated effort. 
5. Be flexible and adaptable
6. Know when to cut

Sometime in the beginning of this week I am going to need to sit down, and go through all of the things that I need to get done before the semester ends. I am going to try and follow this advice and see if it helps me stay more on task, and if it helps me to get more things done.

The link to the website: https://www.liquidplanner.com/blog/how-to-prioritize-work-when-everythings-1/

Making it on your own

Today my mom came up to UNH to bring me a few things that I had left at home over Easter break. We went out to lunch at Libby's and had a pretty interesting conversation. We were talking about how important it is to be able to support oneself financially. I have had a part time job all throughout my college career. The reason for me working wasn't because my parents weren't capable of supporting me, but because I wanted to be able to do it for myself. I didn't want to have to keep asking my parents for money every time I wanted to go out to dinner or buy a new shirt. I must say that ever since I have become financially independent from my parents (for the most part) I have never been more proud of myself. It is a different sort of feeling purchasing things with the money that you worked hard for. It is a new sense of independence and freedom that is so important while you're still young and growing up. It has made me crave more; more hours working, a higher salary, a more reputable job. The struggle between juggling schoolwork along with my work schedule has not been easy. However, I feel as though it has been beneficial for me to go through this struggle now. This is because I am planning on getting my masters degree a few years down the road, and I am going to have to work full time while going to night classes in order to afford it. It will be a much harder feat than it is now, due to the higher intensity of the job and class work load. I am grateful to my parents for everything that they have taught me, but especially how to be hard working and independent.

Wrapping Things Up

The end of the semester is so close, yet so far away. There are roughly one million things that I need to do before I can leave Durham for the summer. I have mixed emotions about going home for the summer this year. On the one hand, I could not be more excited to be done with school work for a few months, this year has been grueling. On the other hand, I don't really get a summer vacation. I am not necessarily upset about this because I am excited to be having an internship for the summer, but it does make it a little bit harder to get excited to leave UNH. I am also sad about the fact that the next time I will be coming back for a fall semester, it will be my last. I am not ready for a full year of "lasts". It is going to be really hard for me. Not only have I made some unforgettable friends here at UNH, but it has also become my home, I don't know what it is going to be like to leave this place for good next year. I believe that next year is going to be totally different for all of us in HMP. We are all going to have some real experience under our belt, and we are going to be able to share that and teach that to each other. When I first went to my sisters graduation from UNH three years ago, I was sad to learn that we have to sit next to the people in our major instead of our friends during the ceremony. Now that I think about it, there is no one else I would rather sit next to than the people I spend countless hours in Pettee 114 with. We have been through the best and worst classes, the hardest tests, and the funniest memories. We all understand what the other has been through over the last few years. I feel as though when we finally reach the finish line, and get handed our diplomas, we should do it together. I really do believe that we have grown together as a family. I have developed friendships with people in our major that I wasn't planning on. I genuinely enjoy their presence, and would hang out with them outside of class in a heart beat. I am so glad that I chose HMP as a major, not only because I believe it will help me be successful in the future, but also because I love how small and close knit the program is. I could've gone into business, and probably been just as successful, but I would have sat in classrooms full of 60+ people everyday, not knowing everyone's names, and not developing relationships with my teachers. Sometimes I take all of this for granted, but at this moment in time I am not.

Organizational Culture

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend! Last week Carly, Sarah, and I did our final presentation for our Healthcare Management class. We decided to do it on Organizational Culture, and I thought it was extremely interesting. We started the class off by doing a few team building exercises. The first one was a 30 second dance party, which I personally really enjoyed, but I don't know about everyone else. The second one was the human knot exercise. For those who don't know what it is, it involves a group of people forming a circle and reaching out to hold the hands of two different group members. The next step is to try and untangle without letting go of the other people's hands. The purpose behind these activities were to show how working together and doing silly fun things can help to build relationships and therefore form a culture. We watched a few short videos on organizational culture, my favorite was the one that portrayed the culture of Zappos. I liked this video the best because it gave a real world example of an organization that had a very unique culture. For the rest of the presentation we decided to take a different approach than usual. Instead of just finding a universal definition and going off of that, I found an online thread from Linked-in that had many different executives describe what they believed organizational culture entailed. I found about twelve different quotes that I believed were of value to share with the class, and then went on to describe them. We asked which ones most people agreed with the most and everyone seemed to agree on the most part. We then had a pretty great class discussion that lasted a while. It involved fraternities and sororities and how they have their own organizational cultures, and we then related those to that of an organizational culture in a workplace. I am glad to be done with my presentations for the semester, but I do believe that they were important and a good experience to have had. It helped me working on my presentation skills, as well as my public speaking skills. I feel as though I am now much more comfortable talking in front of a crowd than I was before.

Evaluations

Last night professor Bonica sent me the peer evaluations that my classmates did for me. I loved reading them, even the ones that had some constructive criticism for me. In my opinion, peer evals motivate me to work harder. Most people said I am falling behind on my blog posts, which I already knew. For some reason hearing it from people besides myself encourages me to do something about it. I now feel as though I will actually start to make sure I am blogging more so that my classmates see that I take what they say and improve upon it. I want them to know that what they think of my work actually matters to me, and I take their opinions seriously. Besides the pointers for improving my blog, they comments I got were really uplifting. People said I am a leader in the class, that I am constantly participating, and that I make insightful comments. It makes me feel humbled to hear these comments from my peers. I like to see that my hard work is being appreciated and that they feel as though I am making a difference in the classroom. The comments that I received from this peer evaluation sort of reminded me of one of the recommendation letters that I received from my high school teacher for college. He talked about how I was someone he looked forward to having in his class because I make it enjoyable. This is something I want to be able to continue. I like to make class fun, and I like to be able to enjoy being there, and if I can make others feel the same way, then that awesome.   

Mentorship

Today in class Colleen and David presented on mentorship. We talked about formal and informal mentoring as well as peer mentoring. We watched a short film about peer support which was very interesting. It was solely related to the healthcare industry, and it talked about making peer support more common, to the point where a person would have someone a peer support personal on their medical team. Professor Bonica even chimed in by telling us about some peer mentorship in a hospital type setting where patients even help each other by recommending treatments. Role model mentoring is what I feel is most common to me. It would be when a boss or a teacher is a mentor to a student or an employee. Colleen mentioned reciprocal mentoring and I had never really heard of that before but it is extremely interesting. Both parties are able to help and mentor each other, and we were able to watch a TEDTALK about it. The guy in the talk believes that mentor relationships should not be mentor mentee, but mentor mentor. He says that he will only agree to be someones mentor if they agree to be his. I don't think I agree with this, because I don't think I would deny being someones mentor just because I don't think I could learn from them. I believe that we learn from every single person that we come into contact with in our lives. With this being said, I don't think that we should go into a mentor relationship only wanting to learn from them, but willing to teach. This summer I am hoping that my preceptor for my internship, Jennifer Foley, will become my mentor. I know that there is so much that I can learn from her, but I don't necessarily see any skills that she could learn from me, as she's already been in the field for about 20 plus years. I am sure that at some point over the summer she will learn something from me, whether it be on a personal level or a work level.  

Experience Vs. Payment

As of today I am facing quite the dilemma. I have interviewed at a few different places for the summer, and I hadn't heard back from anywhere until today. One of my interviews was at the Critical Care Department for Boston Children's Hospital, one of them was at Massachusetts Eye and Ear in Project Management, and the last (my favorite) was at Dana Farber with the Administrative Director. The first two are paid, but I haven't heard back from them yet. The last is unpaid as of now, but I just got an offer today! I am over the moon about it because it is my first choice, besides the unpaid part. I feel like I would gain the most experience at Dana Farber, as I would be shadowing the Administrative Director: Jenn Foley, and attending all of her importnat meetings. She is a fountain of knowledge, and someone whom I would love to have as a mentor. The only problem is that I, like most of us, need and want to get paid. I have to make the difficult decision of sacrificing what I believe would be a great experience in order to earn money, or take the unpaid internship and work my butt off seven days of the week. I would need to get a part time job for the weekends so that I can make ends meet. As of right now, I am leaning towards accepting the offer, as it is what I want and where I feel I fit in the best. I have a feeling this wont't be the last difficult decision I make regarding my career, I just hope I'm making the right choice!

Health Leader Forge

Professor Bonica has an audio blog that he does known as The Health Leader Forge. He interviews healthcare professionals who tend to have a senior role, and then he posts the audio clip on his blog site. I was a co-guest speaker on his blog today, along with one of my fellow classmates Carly. It was definitely a new learning experience for me, but I really enjoyed it and I think I learned a lot. We decided to interview Sue DeMarco, who is the Director of Organizational Development. I hadn't known much about this job before interviewing Sue, but it is very interesting. She has an extensive background, and her career has taken her to a lot of different places. Sue was very easy to talk to, and she seemed like she enjoyed sharing about herself. I feel like this was a valuable experience because not only was I able to make a connection with somebody in the industry, but I also got to learn a lot, and gain experience in speaking with executives. Professor Bonica, Carly, and I are going to edit the audio clip a bit to clean it up, and then we will be posting it online. I will be sure to share the link once that happens.

Performance Evaluations

Tomorrow's class is going to be run by Caroline, Reagan, and Carly. Their topic of the day is going to be performance evaluations and they have given us a few questions to answer as pre-work which I intend to answer here.

1. What characteristics do you think would make a good performance evaluation?

When I think of a good performance evaluation a few things come to mind. First off it would entail a face to face meeting with a superior or supervisor. During this meeting the supervisor should take the time to give a detailed overview of how they feel you have been performing at your job. I feel like not only should they take the time to give constructive criticism and tell you areas that you need to improve upon, but they should also tell you what things you have been excelling at. I think it is also important to discuss the future. The time should be taken to talk about the path that you're on, where you see yourself going, and the steps that are necessary in order to get there.

2. What characteristics do you think would make a poor performance evaluation?

In my opinion a poor performance evaluation would either be no evaluation at all, or a very brief one where they kind of either say "great job!" or "you could do better." I really feel like there needs to be a lot of communication because this is a very important part of your career. It is a time to learn how to advance and be the best you can at a job. 

3. What type of categories do you think would be found on a performance evaluation?

The categories that I believe would be found are, work ethic, timelines, leadership, attitude, areas for improvement, room for growth.  

4. If you have had any experience with performance evaluations, come prepared to discuss your experiences in class. 

I have never necessarily had a formal job performance evaluation before, however there has been a time when my boss at my current job has briefly spoken with me. It was about a year after i became a hostess, and I had started to emerge as a leader. He sat with me for a few minutes and told me I had been exceeding his expectations, and then asked me if I would train the new hires, which I now do. 

Two

Today marked the start of the second part of our semester. We have officially transitioned into the "two" portion of the class. Sarah and I were the first ones to present, and I think it went really well. I was much more comfortable this time around, and I think overall our presentation was a lot more engaging and we were able to get our points across a lot more effectively than we did the first time. We knew we had to change a few things about our presentation from the first time around, and a big part of that was getting the class more involved and active. We had a few activities this time that went well and were really fun. We also had a few video clips which was nice, especially the one from The Office which was really funny. I really enjoyed the subject we presented on as well, I thought it was really interesting and I was excited to learn more about it and discuss it as a group. Effective communication is an important subject, especially when it comes to our professional careers. We watched a TedTalk in class and one of the most important messages that I personally took away from it was when she said that learning how to have an effective conversations in one of the most important skills that you can learn. It is definitely something I want to improve upon, more specifically my verbal communication. I need to work on eliminating words such as "like" and "um." I also tend to get very tongue tied while speaking, especially when I'm nervous. I have trouble getting my point across and therefore I am not very effective. As far as nonverbal communication I feel as though I am pretty good at that. My body language is usually professional and I use gestures appropriately. Moving on with the rest of the semester I need to post more on my blog, and I also need to contact my mentor again soon. I am excited to talk to her and learn from her.

Hectic Life

The last week or so has been extremely overwhelming. I have been juggling work, going to classes, studying for midterms, job interviews, extracurricular, all while trying to remain sane. While doing all of this I have been trying not to let anything slip, but unfortunately I haven't been able to blog as much lately as I would've liked to. The last class was really interesting. We had other people take the MBTI personality test for us which was really interesting. I had my college roommate take it for me whom I've known my whole life, and she got a much different answer than I did. Then I had Sarah take it for me who I sit next to in class everyday and she got all the same results as me except she had me as an extrovert instead of an introvert. We decided that this was most likely because she doesn't know me much outside the classroom which is when I tend to be more introverted. I believe that my roommate has a lot of varied answers because the way I act around her is when I am the most comfortable version of myself. It was very interesting to see the results. This week also summed up our first segment of classes known as "One." My group and I are going to be the first ones to present on the topic of "Two" the Monday after spring break. We are going our presentation on accountability, constructive criticism, and high reliability. I am more excited to do this presentation than I was to do the first one, mostly because now I know what to expect. I have been able to see what works well for teaching styles and what the class responds to the most and I think this will make it so that we can have a more meaningful presentation that people will actually learn from and even enjoy. I am also excited to reach out to my mentor again. I am curious to see what she's been up to and if she has any advice that she can give me about my next presentation.

Character

For today's class we were assigned a quiz to take that outlined our character strengths. I really enjoyed this quiz, I thought it asked a lot of really good questions, and I found myself eager to find out the results. After reviewing the results, I must say I wasn't very surprised by my top qualities. My top four were as follows,
                                             

These made perfect sense to me. I live my life in the most honest way I see possible. I chose to not surround myself with people whom aren't honest with me, or with whom I don't feel I can be honest with. Once someone I am close with betrays me when it comes to honesty, I tend to be very hesitant around them from then on. I also enjoy loving people blindly. This could be seen as a bad thing, but it's something I like about myself. I have a closely knit group of individuals who I love with my whole heart and I would do absolutely anything for them. As for the teamwork and leadership traits, I feel as though those go hand in hand with each other. All my life I have been a team player, whether in a sport, in the classroom, at work, or in relationships. Going off of that, I love to lead people. I have been the captain of numerous different sports teams growing up, from soccer in 7th grade, all the way to basketball my senior year of high school. I like to take charge of group products, and some of that comes from me liking to do things my own way, and not wanting to rely on others.

My bottom four made just as much sense to me. They were as follows.
                                         

I tend to live life at a constant speed, fast paced, and I fail to slow down and take a look around me. I rarely "stop to smell the roses," you could say. This is something that I would personally like to improve upon. I feel as though it is something that would improve my personal quality of life and make me happier. As far as self-regulation goes, I'm surprised this wasn't my last trait. I am the worst when it comes to self-control. I can't stay on a diet, I'm awful at going to the gym everyday, and I spent way more time than I should watching Netflix. As of the past month I have been doing a lot better in this area. I have realized that if I don't start improving upon it now, these habits will stick with me for the rest of my life and I will be unhealthy and lazy. Forgiveness is one of my greatest weaknesses. It ties into my stubbornness, which my mom always tells me will hold me back. I lost one of my best friends in high school due to her severely breaking my trust, and me not being able to forgive her. I hold grudges, and I dwell on things. Spirituality does make the most sense as my last trait. I am Catholic, but I haven't been to church in a long time, besides for a wedding. I did get confirmed, but I did that to please my Nana. Overall I found this quiz to be very enlightening, I was even tempted to download the full report, but of course I'm too broke for that.

Emotional Intelligence

Today in class, we talked about emotional intelligence. I really liked this class, because this subject is really interesting to me. I believe that emotional intelligence is definitely more important than an IQ is these days, especially in the field that we are going into. I have actually been thinking about this subject a lot on my own lately. I am going in for a job interview to Boston this week and I have been really nervous about it. I know that I am definitely not the smartest student in our major with the best grades, and this is something I'm very self-conscious of when I go on interviews. However, I feel as though I am very emotionally intelligent. I tend to relate well with people of all personalities, and I am very good when it comes to meeting new people. I know how to sell myself and i know what my strengths and weaknesses are. I feel like this is the attribute about myself that sets me apart from other people. I feel as when the time to be emotional is and when the time to keep it to myself is, which is important. If someone gives me feedback about a performance that upsets me, I take it in stride, thank them, and then let myself be upset later. There are times when I feel as though it is acceptable to be emotional, or vulnerable, as we've talked about at work. In my opinion though, it's more being vulnerable by putting yourself out there and taking risks then it is being vulnerable and emotional.

Mentor

Thursday night I finally had the chance to speak with my mentor over the phone, and she's great! We had a really nice conversation and were able to cover a variety of topics. She gave me a lot of great input when it came to preparing for job interviews. I have an interview coming up and I have had a lot of nerves about it, and she was able to help ease some of those nerves. We talked a lot about being prepared by researching the company before hand, and making sure to come up with some questions for the interview as well. She also gave me a lot of insight about choosing a company to work for, whether it be for the internship this summer, or a job in the future. We talked about how it is important that you can see yourself happily working for the company in all of it's aspects. It is important to make sure that you agree with the mission statement and that you have the same interests as the hospital or company that you're apart of. I really liked this advice because a lot of people that I know are miserable at their current jobs but they refuse to leave because they are so controlled by money. I feel as though you can always find a job where you can be happy, and making a living for yourself, if you work hard enough. We also spent some time talking about the structure of the class, we both agreed that the design is really cool and different, but can definitely be challenging. My mentor also had Professor Bonica as a teacher and we both agreed that it is very different to have him be the one who doesn't do most of the talking since he loves to tell stories and teach. I feel as though my mentor and I got along well, even though I was a little bit awkward over the phone, as I always am with new people. I am very grateful to have her, and she told me I could contact her by phone or email as often as I want, which I very much appreciate.

Teaching

      Yesterday I did my first presentation for our class, which was to teach on a subject of our choosing. As I explained in my last post, my group and I chose to do ours on Motivation. I was very proud of how our class went, we knew our information, and I believe that we came prepared, and were able to present in a way that the class could learn. I am glad that we had some time left at the end of the class so that we could receive some feedback. I believe that it's always important to receive constructive criticism, especially if you're trying to improve upon something. The feedback that we received will greatly help us when we are preparing to teach our next class. The responses that I took the most from were those saying that we should try and find a way to get more engaged with the rest of the class, and that we should also maybe try and find a way to connect our presentation with the health care industry, seeing as how we are a healthcare related class. I enjoy having the chance to present in front of others. I don't get nervous doing it, and I think it is extremely important to get as much practice in while we are in school as possible, so that when we eventually get jobs, we are seasoned and poised. One thing that I will say is that I can really sympathize now with teachers when nobody in the class will participate. There were times in our presentation when one of us would ask a question or ask for someone to share, and the audience was silent. This is not only frustrating, but it is also awkward, especially when you base certain parts of a lecture off of participation.
      In other news, I am preparing for my first phone call with my mentor, Konni, tonight. I am very much looking forward to it. We have been having problems getting in touch with one another, due to a time zone difference that neither of us had noticed. I am hoping to maybe get some inspiration from her on what to give our next presentation on, or even some information about motivation that I can use while writing our chapter for the primer.

Motivation

Motivation is an interesting subject that can be a factor in whether or not people are successful. For class on Monday, my group and I are doing a presentation on this subject. We are asking everyone in the class to take a quick online quiz that rates how motivated they are, and then gives a quick description of what their results mean. I myself took the quiz and I got a 31, and the results were as follows.


The other thing that we are asking everyone in the class to do is to write down a list of the top five things that motivate them to do the important things in their lives, as well as a list of the top five things that distract them from accomplishing things. I am excited to do this exercise because I am curious to see if we all share a lot of commonalities. As of right now my list for motivation would be as follows:
1. Excitement/something to look forward to
2. Money
3. My future
4. My family/friends
5. My self-image

The top five things that distract me right now would be:
1. Netflix
2. Hanging out with friends
3. Being tired
4. Being homesick
5. Being lazy/bored

I find it personally really hard to be motivated to do things unless I am truly excited about it. I tend to procrastinate and be lazy most of the time which is something I really need to work on. That is one of the reasons I am so excited to be doing a lesson on this subject so that I can hopefully teach myself something useful in the process.

Actions that Follow You

This blog post may seem to be a bit off topic to some, but I feel as though it is of importance. Last night many people across campus watched the Patriots win the Superbowl. For most this was an exciting historic win, and so as years previous, UNH students took to the streets. The behavior I saw there seriously appalled me, not by everyone but by enough people. It was as though certain people forgot who they were or what the normal rules of society were and they felt as though they could do whatever they please without owning up to what they were doing. I saw cars get smashed, trees get destroyed and more importantly, I feel, physical harm. I myself was a victim of this last night, and it is what has got me thinking. One day, soon, we are all going to be in what is called "the real world" and actions like these will come with severe consequences. Not only can jobs fire you for such atrocious behavior, but new jobs can refuse to hire you. Most jobs have a code of conduct involved. It is to make sure that wherever you are and whatever you're doing, you are representing your workplace in a good manner. A company doesn't want bad publicity due to their employees, just like UNH doesn't want bad publicity due to their students. I feel as though it is important to note that your actions will follow you around. It is time that we as a community and a generation grow up. Our future employers will expect better from us, and our school and our peers deserve better from us. Rant over.

New Team

For most of my life I have been a part of a team. Whether it be a sports team, a friendship, or a relationship, I am very used to this aspect of life. I have always loved being a part of a team, there is always something to look forward to, or something to work on. As of yesterday, our class HMP 722, officially became a new team in my life. It is going to take a lot of hard work to really get to know each other and be able to rely heavily on one another. All of the best teams that I have ever been a part of ended up being a group of my closest friends. I'm not saying that this means everyone in our class needs to become best friends, but it definitely helps teams grow when they get to know one another better, in my personal opinion. We have a long road ahead of us, but I believe that our final project is going to be really cool in the end. It will be something that none of us is familiar with, but in the end it will be something we can all be truly proud of. One other thing that I have grown to know about teams is that it is important for leaders to be present. In middle and high school I played on a club soccer team where I was captain for five years. I was also one of the captains of my basketball team my senior year of high school. This leadership role allowed me to not be in charge, or boss people around, but to lead by example and with positive encouragement. I believe that as our class moves forward leaders will emerge automatically. It is possible that we will have numerous leaders, and that is more than ok. This post ties into what we learned a bit about last year with the first follower video, meaning a great leader is only as great as their followers. Nobody is able to lead a group of people if no one in that group is willing to follow them. This applies to all aspects of life whether you are simply on a sports team, a CEO of a hospital, or even the President.  

Personality Tests

       I find personality tests to be very reflective of how I view myself. I have taken both the "Big Five Personality Test" and the "MBTI" previously on my own. I think that they are fun and I enjoy seeing if I receive the same or similar results every time. This time was no different than the past, and I am proud of the results that I get. I like to know new things about myself, and these tests tend to open my eyes to different aspects of myself that I hadn't noticed before, but now realize to be true. I feel as though it is extremely important to answer all of the questions on these tests as accurately as you can, so that none of the results are skewed. I also think it is important to read the full summary explanation of the results because there is a ton of interesting information in it. The results I got from both tests reflect each other for the most part. I am mostly an introvert, except around people with whom I'm comfortable with, in which case I'm extremely outgoing. I am very hardworking and determined, and can always be relied on to get the job done thoroughly.
       One thing that I just discovered about myself while taking the MBTI this time around was that I am a defender personality type. I tend to put others first and like to make sure that they're alright before I take care of myself. The specific lettered results I got from the Myers Briggs test were, ISFJ, which in short translates to, "A high sense of duty."
       I believe that the biggest traits that "The Big Five" got right about me is that I am a huge worry-wart. I worry about everything, from super important to not at all relevant to my life. The other trait would be the fact that I am extremely close-minded. This translates into my life because I hate change, I'm not very good at it at all. I'm also the kind of person who refuses to try new foods or go to parties where I'm forced to hang out with people I don't know. After seeing my results and just how close minded I am, it makes me realize that it is probably something I should work on.
       In my free time I'm one of those people who always takes the random personality tests that one would find on Facebook. I think that they're fun and silly, but at the same time I also think that they really make you reflect on yourself and see if you like the person that you are.

The following is the charted results that I received from the Big Five: