Amelia Baca

Lori Fisher

March 5th, 2020

Inspire Week Reflection

 

Throughout this experience, I have been able to identify with not just my community but with myself as well. For my Sophmore inspire week I was able to attend the Soul Dog Rescue in Towac, Colorado. During these three days, I was able to identify many strengths in my self and the goals I have for the future in my career. For example, I have realized I work every well in groups and am able to contribute and lead a group effectively. I was also able to find that there are many opportunities for volunteer work and job opportunities as a high school student. At the beginning of this week, I did not think to play with dogs and volunteering at a rescue would help me identify career options and personal attributes. But by the last day, I was able to reflect and realize this experience allowed me to be apart of the community, find positive self attributes, be a part of a group, and help identify job opportunities for my future career.

 

We are currently learning a lot about resumes and how important these days of our lives help identify careers and how to create a good resume. Through all of our projects so far, I feel as if this is the most important and effective for me. Being able to be a part of the community and receive a lot of volunteer Opportunites will not just make my resume better but also help me find potential career opportunities. Some skills I am taking back to the classroom is the realization of how school is helping me grow my attributes and identify good jobs and career opportunities. For example, I love biology and it makes me realize that I want to be in the medical field. School has been able to show me a lot of opportunities to be apart of my community and be able to identify career paths. From the classroom to my volunteer project, I was able to take the skills of being able to identify the importance of volunteer work and how I can apply this to my career paths and even job opportunities for my high school years.

 

I feel in this project I was very successful with my time management. All of the 3 days my group and I were able to successfully fulfill our obligations and were able to finish more than what was expected. In my service project, I feel as if I had a lot of structure from our leader Jess which I can say for me was very effective. For the hours we were there I felt it was very go, go, go. Which was very effective for our group to finish what was needed to be done and more. Personally, I liked the structure we had, it left no free time to feel lost with your time management and was extremely effective. During work time, I noticed I was very busy so it made the time go by extremely fast. With my project, there was a lot to be done and all of the work time we had was very important and we used all of it. After this experience, I have realized that I work well with very set goals and structure.

 

I feel as if my YouScience results were very accurate throughout my service project. In my YouScience results, it stated that I was a good team member but also strived on my own as a leader. In the 3 days of my project, there was a lot of team projects but also the alone time you had doing projects or socializing dogs and cats. Apart from our project, we decided to create an adoption event and a blanket drive for the rescue. Though I was apart of a team, Christine and I took the 2 leading roles of creating and being the leaders of the fundraisers. I was able to identify that even in a group setting I strive as a leader and a member of the group. My YouScience talked about these attributes as a leader but also a follower due to my very outgoing but also introverted personality. Reflecting back I have definitely found this aspect of myself true. At times I can be quiet but I can also be very outgoing.

 

For upcoming students, the number one point of advice I have is for them to pick what they are passionate about. Do not pick an inspire week just because your friends are in it or because it’s the easiest one. I was able to split from my typical group and branch out which was allowed me to grow as a person and create good relationships with people I do not usually hang out with. Coming into my group, I had no friends and was worried because I am somewhat a shy person in group settings. But by the end of the 3 days, I was friends with each and every person in my group and has shown me that it is good to come out of your shell and expand your surroundings and people you surround yourself with. I will also encourage upcoming sophomores to only pick an inspire week if you’re willing to do the work. For mine, it was not just playing with animals. It was manual labor and a lot of hard work. There were scared animals and a lot of cleaning up after them. So be willing to come to your Inspire Wek willing to put your all into it and do what comes with. I feel as if those are the two most important pieces I have of advice for upcoming sophomores.