Saturday, November 12, 2011

Discipline

Being an Ivy League Connection scholar, I've learned many lessons about presenting myself professionally, such as proper posture, how to dress for success, time management, and in my opinion the most important lesson: discipline.

When I left Brown over the summer, my friends and I found a bit of solace in knowing that we would most likely be reunited in November and yet we still bawled our eyes out at the thought of separating. Our group is roughly about 12 people, and trying to stay together while navigating the narrow streets of Providence, Rhode Island proved to be quite the problem. Thank goodness for the symposium; the workshops and lectures taught us how to effectively communicate and run meetings, which proved to be very useful in deciding where we were all going to go for our free time.

I also discussed my Action Plan, which is to organize a school-wide event similar to "Challenge Day," a social diversity workshop made famous by MTV's "If You Really Knew Me." My school's "Challenge Day" would be based on racial diversity and tension, which is a huge problem in my school. I'm looking into getting a professional speaker to come to my school and emcee the event, and setting up a committee of students to help me organize it. As long as I stay focused and professional, I expect great things from my Action Plan.

After the Symposium, students had a lot of time to explore the city and that's when the true reunion occurred. A night out in the city with my fellow Women & Leadership Ladies was well-deserved, as we all worked extremely hard to get to where we are today. A friend of ours even drove out to hang out with us even though she wasn't attending the symposium. We ate together, reminisced, laughed like crazy, and acted as if we had never separated. It feels great knowing I have yet another reason to travel around the nation, and that reason is to see these "sisters" of mine again.

Everyone wanted to hang out in one hotel room and watch the movie "Mean Girls" as a way to end the day, but knowing that I had made the ILC a promise that I'd blog daily, I had to put my feelings aside and go to my room with Rebecca to use our laptops to blog. Being in the ILC enforced discipline in me that I hadn't had before the program. I believe that if it weren't for the strict rules of blogging, I'd take the easy route of hanging out with friends. I just hope this disciplined attitude will follow me into my college years.

1 comment:

  1. Josie,

    You have to know that I appreciate your blogging. Not only do I enjoy reading what's going on (and seeing any photos that get posted) but I see what the blogging has done to you all.

    When I read these blogs this weekend and compare them to the blogs you ALL wrote just six months ago, it's like they were written by different people. The growth in you all is so noticeable and the quality of your writing has improved as well.

    I know it seems like an imposition to blog but just what you've written tonight shows more than just fulfilling an obligation. What I'm seeing is an understanding of the commitment you made to the ILC and the need to follow through with that commitment. This is what distinguishes people and helps to characterize them into those that are leaders ad those that are followers.

    We have actually added a new component to the ILC application where we test the commitment of our prospective ILCers. Just what you've written in this blog can be used as an example of what we're looking for.

    If you'll recall, I've mentioned more than once that EVERYTHING we have you do is for a reason. It's all a learning tool. I'm not suggesting that you didn't have all of these fine qualities before but it's becoming more evident now.

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