Gateway to University Honors
Gateway to University Honors is an introductory course for all students who are a member of the University Honors Program at the University of Cincinnati. The purpose of the class is to teach students the core values of the program, to be a global citizen scholar and how to use our experiences in life to grow as a person. Being a global citizen scholar means that we are educated members of our community actively trying to make the world better whether it is just in our community or on a global scale. To become a global citizen scholar, we first have to understand who we are and what we want to achieve in life. The course is heavily focused on reflection, it is easy to reflect on a superficial level and say what we think other people want to hear,
|
but true reflection is an effective avenue for personal development. Part of this class was taking a strengths finder assessment and then doing activities to understand different perspectives on what each of our personal strengths meant. This activity in particular stuck with me because I had to think critically about how each of my strengths manifested in my own life. When approaching unfamiliar situations, I now find myself pausing to consider what my strengths are and how I can best take advantage of them. This course has provided me with opportunities for personal growth and tools I can utilize to be successful in college and in life.
|
Global Citizen Scholar
Pitch Plan
The world has a lot of problems, more than any one person can conquer on their own. One problem that I want to address is the needs of disabled children, particularly those on the autism spectrum or suffering from another genetic disorder. I am not trying to find a cure or a fix for it, instead I want to improve the quality of life for children who have to struggle every day to accomplish the same things everyone else does without a second thought. I am just one person and I am not going to change the world on my own but I am working on my undergraduate degree in communication sciences and disorders so that after I earn a graduate degree I can get my license to practice as a speech pathologist. I also realize that it will be years before I am able to do that and I want to make a difference now, I am currently volunteering at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in the speech pathology department and I will continue to do so in the next semester.
Over the course of the next couple year I want to use my passion for helping other people to become a global citizen scholar. I am currently working on community engagement, I would like to build on that and expand my horizons in multiple ways. One of the thematic areas around being a global citizen scholar is research, this is a vital part of understanding the problems of the world to be solved. As an undergraduate I plan to pursue multiple research opportunities, learn as much as I can about the different disabilities people face and what causes them. By being educated I have a chance to make a real change in someone’s life. I am a big supporter of community service and outreach, one thing that I would like to do at some point in my college career is to do outreach in another country. A personal goal that I have set for myself is to learn another language and about another culture so that I can become more proficient in the area of Global Studies and use these skills to better serve people who need help in other countries.
Before I can help other people, I need to discover what my personal strengths are and how I can develop them so that they can be of use in the pursuit of service. Through Clifton Strengths Finder I discovered that my top 5 strengths are Input, Responsibility, Harmony, Relator and Discipline. Each one of these on their own can be developed to help other people and I plan to do so but when they are all used together they are all more effective. Every one of these strengths is valuable and will come up when doing work in the service of helping others, the most important one that I want to develop for service is relator. Relator means understanding other people’s perspectives and making a connection with them on a personal level. When it comes to children with mental disabilities, they face challenges when interacting with people so I can practice understanding and patience with people who do not all think the same way I do. Being able to comprehend what people struggle with and what they need is the first step to helping them.
Viewing the world from different perspectives is important to being an educated, well-rounded person and I have learned that in a multitude of ways. One way that I learned that was an exercise we did in Gateway to University Honors. Each one of us took the strengths finder assessment and brought our strengths to class, we all came in with what we believed our strengths meant and each one of us had a different understanding. During the class, we all walked around and found people who had a strength in common and we talked about what we thought it meant. The most impactful part of this activity was seeing how differently each of our minds worked, everyone had a different thought process about the strength and how to apply it in a real-world situation. It is easy to focus on the world as it applies to us, so being open to how other people think is important. I plan to take this perspective and apply it to every aspect of my life including helping to improve the lives of disabled children.
I am not trying to single-handedly save the world and I don’t think anyone can, but if we all stand up and make a difference in somebody’s life then the world would be a better place. This is where I want to make my impact.
Over the course of the next couple year I want to use my passion for helping other people to become a global citizen scholar. I am currently working on community engagement, I would like to build on that and expand my horizons in multiple ways. One of the thematic areas around being a global citizen scholar is research, this is a vital part of understanding the problems of the world to be solved. As an undergraduate I plan to pursue multiple research opportunities, learn as much as I can about the different disabilities people face and what causes them. By being educated I have a chance to make a real change in someone’s life. I am a big supporter of community service and outreach, one thing that I would like to do at some point in my college career is to do outreach in another country. A personal goal that I have set for myself is to learn another language and about another culture so that I can become more proficient in the area of Global Studies and use these skills to better serve people who need help in other countries.
Before I can help other people, I need to discover what my personal strengths are and how I can develop them so that they can be of use in the pursuit of service. Through Clifton Strengths Finder I discovered that my top 5 strengths are Input, Responsibility, Harmony, Relator and Discipline. Each one of these on their own can be developed to help other people and I plan to do so but when they are all used together they are all more effective. Every one of these strengths is valuable and will come up when doing work in the service of helping others, the most important one that I want to develop for service is relator. Relator means understanding other people’s perspectives and making a connection with them on a personal level. When it comes to children with mental disabilities, they face challenges when interacting with people so I can practice understanding and patience with people who do not all think the same way I do. Being able to comprehend what people struggle with and what they need is the first step to helping them.
Viewing the world from different perspectives is important to being an educated, well-rounded person and I have learned that in a multitude of ways. One way that I learned that was an exercise we did in Gateway to University Honors. Each one of us took the strengths finder assessment and brought our strengths to class, we all came in with what we believed our strengths meant and each one of us had a different understanding. During the class, we all walked around and found people who had a strength in common and we talked about what we thought it meant. The most impactful part of this activity was seeing how differently each of our minds worked, everyone had a different thought process about the strength and how to apply it in a real-world situation. It is easy to focus on the world as it applies to us, so being open to how other people think is important. I plan to take this perspective and apply it to every aspect of my life including helping to improve the lives of disabled children.
I am not trying to single-handedly save the world and I don’t think anyone can, but if we all stand up and make a difference in somebody’s life then the world would be a better place. This is where I want to make my impact.