Chapter 2: Leadership Vision Board

As a STEM major, my ultimate career goal to innovate and experiment with existing resources and technologies to improve the relationship between humans and technology. Furthermore, I want to make technology more efficient and accessible, especially for people in underrepresented or underprivileged communities. I hope to do this not only through my career. also with my personal life.  One of my long-term goals is to spread acceptance and awareness through my actions and my community involvement. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I am constantly being inspired by my peers and friends who, despite various challenges, also pursue STEM degrees to become doctors, engineers, or researchers in the career they love. Our presence and ongoing fight for acceptance and equality is represented by the image of the parade-goer with the pride flag. We are proud to be who we are, but our pride is not without it’s struggles. My interest and career goals in STEM are highlighted by the computer nodes, the computer, and the scientific tools on my vision board. The various symbols represent the diversity within STEM, especially in technology, which is where my major is based in.

I would describe my leadership style as a mixture of organized yet flexible. when working in large groups, I tend to lay out a clear plan, but provide flexibility for my teammates to incorporate their own ‘style’ into their given tasks and find new angles to tackle the task at hand. While being flexible and calm in moments of stress is still skills I’m working on, I cultivated my organization skills from parents. My parents are the biggest influence on my leadership style, having helped me grow as a professional and as an adult. It’s was from them that I learned prior preparation prevents poor performance. I enjoy working in groups because it exposes me to different perspectives and solutions to problems I normally wouldn’t think of. On my vision board, I used the handshake and the scales to represent because collaboration is beneficial for me and my team as well as helps me balance out my skills and shortcomings with that of my teammates.

A unique aspect of my leadership style is my growing use of creativity in solve problems and complete tasks. Since I started college, I have been exposed to so many ideas and perspectives that are useful in being a leader. As a result, whenever I’m in a leadership position, I aim to approach things with a creative ‘spin’ on it, which I then share with my team. I have found this practice to help reduce stress and open up new opportunities that wouldn’t be there otherwise. This aspect of my leadership style is comedically represented by the disco ball, which happens to shine down upon the rest of the vision board.

One of my favorite experiences in leadership is quite recent, a few months ago I was accepted as an undergrad researcher for the research at UCF. A unique trait of undergrad research is that much of research and work is independent, however with consistent guidance from the faculty running the lab. This experience was the perfect opportunity to cultivate my communication skills (in explaining how my part of the research was going), research skills (which involved organization and collaboration with other involved in the project), and programming skills (specifically python and R). Currently, I’m still working as an undergrad researcher at the Teaching Academy.