Cultivating Connection _____________________________________

Old Dominion University’s LeADERS program is an initiative offered to students to further their connection to developmental courses and beneficial learning experiences that foster surrounding that produce real-world skills to enhance the capabilities of its students, giving them the advantage in competitive work, or school, environments within the areas of: Leadership, Academic Internship, Diversity, Entrepreneurship, Research, or Service Learning. The ePortfolio presented here shares how my experiences within Leadership, Diversity, and Entrepreneurship have cultivated my personal and professional development.

Introspective

Why I joined

The LeADERS program made its appearance around the end of my Junior year. After I had already selected my classes. It sounded interesting, so I put it in my back pocket until it was time to sign up for classes again. My last semester at Old Dominion came and I decided that I wanted more from my college career. I received an email from the LeADERS program and decided this was it. The more I read up on the program the more I felt connected to the idea that this is how I wanted to showcase my knowledge and experiences. It became solidified once I met with an advisor, she made me feel welcomed and gave me the sense of confidence that my current and future achievements mattered. I joined leaders for two reasons: One, I felt as though this program would be the best way to enhance and showcase my abilities: Two, I appreciated the initial supportive environment on my very first meeting that I felt like I had to confidence to finish my degree strong.

Challenges and Perseverance

I did not find any challenges within the classes that I took only that I had entered the program so late in my college education. I had one semester to tie everything together, including the ePortfolio. I felt flooded by deadlines this semester that transitioning between the workloads was a skill I had to manage, and fast. I decided that each day would have a little bit of each assignment that was due and whichever deadline was the closest that is what I would work on first and for the longest. This strategy became a blessing; I felt the flood receding a little more with every day that passed. I wanted to take my time and do everything to the best that my abilities had to offer, especially for my ePortfolio. When the final day came, I knew I had created something wonderous.

Significant Successes

I would say that my most significant success during this program was completing the program itself. I came into this program with one semester left of college and two out of the minimum three classes to be required in order to qualify for the program. I was extremely determined to get that third credit somehow. I was presented with the option of a substitute Diversity option; however, the Covid-19 pandemic almost ruined all chances and hope that I could conjure. Graduation was drawing closer and I became worried I was not going to make the program guidelines. An unexpected opportunity arose for another substitution for Diversity and I dove in. I created a webpage dedicated to the connectedness of African Culture. It was accepted and I felt accomplished again! With all that was setting me back I still managed to complete this program, it may not have been for silver or for gold, but I am still happy with what I have done.

You can read more about this in the Diversity section under the LeADERS menu at the top of the screen.

Grounded Connections

I completed the Leadership, Diversity, and Entrepreneurship sections of the program. In my journey into becoming an I/O psychologist I have found that these three areas directly impact each other and my perception of my capabilities. Leadership (Industrial/Organizational Psychology) provided me with the knowledge of my field in general and the inner working of what it takes to understand the job and it parts. Entrepreneurship (Psychology of Entrepreneurship) expanded view and showed me the steps it takes to get a business idea off of paper and into a manageable position. My knowledge further expanded once my final project was complete, as I spent the entire semester writing a business proposal. I learned how a business looked from the inside and was able to apply my knowledge of I/O into creating a functional business from the inside out. Lastly, I have Diversity. Not only did this project provide me with a sense of connection and openness to a new culture it helped to keep my mind open to new experiences. This ties in perfectly into the business world as there are various different cultures thriving within the community that should be respected and understood. I feel as though I have the abilities to be someone who does not place judgment on those who are different and that I have a newfound appreciation for a culture I had never previously explored. I cannot wait to apply these new cognitions into my professional career.

Keep Moving Forward

Various skills I have Acquired 

Work in a team structure	Plan, organize, and prioritize work tasks
project management	Obtain and process information
reading/writing comprehension	Demonstrate Microsoft Office computer software proficiency
Microsoft Office proficiency	Create and/or edit reports
Demonstrate technical knowledge	review of research literature to remain current.

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As previously stated, my goals for the future include the pursuit of my PsyD in Industrial/Organizational Psychology so that I may provide professional services as an I/O Psychologist to the best of my abilities. These two goals encompass my personal, educational, and professional expectations after graduating with my B.S. from Old Dominion University. Although this passion is newly formed, after switching earlier in the year from Clinical Psychology, it is strong and dedicated, nonetheless. I had decided that my talents were better suited for a group work environment rather than in an individualized setting.

The LeADERS program has helped to develop and refine my skills involving project management, planning, organization, and prioritization of work tasks, Microsoft Office proficiency, creative problem solving, critical thinking, reading/writing comprehension, verbal and electronic communication, time management, obtain and process information, review of research literature to remain current. Within the class completed for Entrepreneurship, the end of the semester project – creating a business proposal – was broken into pieces that were due periodically throughout the semester. This schedule and searching for current literature to review for project completion, helped to accelerate my skills in project management, planning, organization, and prioritization of work tasks, Microsoft Office proficiency, reading/writing comprehension, and my ability to obtain and process information into a comprehensible work product used to persuade the target audience. This has also benefited my abilities to promptly and amply create and edit reports. Not only was writing the business proposal enriching for my professional growth, my time spent in my I/O psychology course provided an interactive learning environment where we analyzed case studies, applied learned interview techniques and scales, and evaluated employee satisfaction, proficiency, and competency scales either created by real or mock businesses. The learning experiences provided a sense of real-world preparedness and in some cases involved us working with a team setting to best decide which “potential employees” would be hirable and where within the “company” they should be placed. Lastly, the creation of my Diversity project was entirely online and involved much literature review in order to provide the accurate information needed to the audiences that would be seeing my review. Throughout the process of using Adobe Spark to create an interactive webpage, I became more proficient with the computer software and technical knowledge needed to finalize the cultural review. As mentioned previously, this helped to enhance my openness to new cultures and experiences which is prevalent within todays culture and business community.