MBTI

It seems every time I read through my MBTI I always discover something new. It’s either about myself, how I relate to others, or how other people’s personalities are. I am reminded of how we all think and react differently to information around us, within us, how we process it, and how we put it out to the world. It always strikes me that if more people simply understood that everyone has different tendencies, then more people would get along.

Just this summer I had an internship that involved a lot of youth development processes’. I discovered how my little knowledge of the MBTI scales really pertains to how we work and can interact with people. At our staff meetings we worked towards coming together as a group so we could accomplish everything we wanted to with the goal of creating successful youth leaders in our minds. I had brought up the MBTI model to my staff members and suggested that we do more to understand each other so that we would also understand how different people could be. They all loved the idea and learned just as much as I had about how much easier it is to get along and work with people to whom you better understand their personalities.

The same concept applies to my small group of students. They all have different ways of doing things based on personality. And by making myself aware of how they take in and respond to information around and within them, I can better myself as their leader so they will grow as successful college students themselves.

Week 14

Last blog of the semester!! I feel like this semester has flown by! It’s a good thing though because in 12 more days it will be summer!

During class last week we engaged ourselves in various ice breakers. Depending on the type of ice breaker, you can learn a lot about a person and have fun doing it. Conducting the right type of team building and ice breaker exercise can really allow bonding all groups of people.

I attended my last diversity event this past Friday. It was focused around women in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields. The objective of the focal groups was to figure out why women were more likely to transfer outside of a STEM field then men, also why women may perhaps struggle more in these types of fields. I found it very interesting the different views people had within the group. People in the group ranged anywhere from professors, to advisors, to HR professionals, to admissions counselors, students and so forth.

We were allowed to separate ourselves into groups and come up with lists as to why women are not successful in completing a STEM field. Some of the items that made up my groups list were that women feel inferior. They will put themselves down when they don’t feel worthy enough and put themselves down. We also pointed out that professors often times have a lack of recognition that everyone has different learning styles, especially between the ways men and women learn.

A few other things we came up with revolved around how women are in their personalities compared to men that would explain why there are such difficulty keeping women involved in STEM fields. Women are often characterized as more nurturers and ‘soft’ while the STEM fields are often times not a ‘soft’ field. Another big thing was more of a question that most likely keeps women from these related fields which is how can being in these areas of study allow for women to be mothers. A goal in life for a lot of women is to have a family. Without a career that can go along with that, women are less likely to engage in those types of fields.

This event really opened up my mind to the various issues between women and STEM fields or just discriminated fields based on gender in general. I not only opened my mind up to these types of issues, but about my own life as well and what types of goals I have as well within my aspired career path.

Week 13

Been a great week for Hixson I would say! Christina received an award during VEISHEA, the team I was on won our scavenger hunt, we achieved some filming, and we had an awesome retreat! Great job peer mentors! It’s has been so fun!

This past week was among my favorite activities we have done thus far this semester for this class. It will definitely be an activity that I will incorporate into my section this upcoming fall. It was physically and mentally stimulating. We were required to think of where everything was located and strategically plan as a group how we would get to every location in the allotted time. It was a team building exercise that educated us in campus resources as well! This is a main reason why I believe it would be a great activity to do with or without my mentees this fall. They will bond and work with their fellow classmates and learn some Iowa State resources in the process.

The retreat was also a lot of fun and gave me some great ideas for some fun and stimulating activities to do with my group and maybe even some other groups this fall. Especially since I had never heard of some of the activities we did like the maze game, the chicken game, or the sheet game! It was all very ‘thought-induced.’ As a group or in pairs we needed to work together to solve a presented problem.

Activities in this past week, I feel, have brought our mentor group closer together. The fun activities have brought some laughs and have allowed me to loosen up and feel more and more comfortable with those I will be spending even more time with this upcoming semester. If anything, this past week has gotten me so excited about what we, as mentors, have to look forward to this upcoming fall with our group of Hixson scholars!

Hope everyone has a great week! Only two more weeks then finals!

Week 12

Its VEISHEA week everyone!!! You know what that means! Well for most people it means going out and having lots of fun experiencing the Iowa State adventure, but for some people (like me) it means study and work hard so you can get all of your projects, papers, and upcoming tests studied for. I LOVE college!!

This past week Karen and Zach outlined the 2 methods we could use to create goals for ourselves. One of the methods was the SMART goal planning method. I had heard and used this method before for previous classes and general goal setting for various aspects of my life. One SMART goal I remember making was targeted towards changing an unhealthy habit I had. I chose to alter my portion sizes and aim to have more portion control over my food intake. My goals met the SMART goal criteria, however it was a little hard for me to attain. The exercise I did around creating and attempting to meet a SMART goal didn’t really fit me as a person. For me to set goals, I need a different method to where my goal is more planned out step by step of how I will attain it rather than just a set criteria saying whether or not it is a ‘good goal’.

I plan to try the other method of goal setting (the 4 M’s) to see if that would be a better method for me personally in setting goals for myself as a peer mentor this fall. One goal I have in regards to my future role as a peer mentor is to be as readily available as possible to help my future mentees in any way I can. I believe it meets the 4 M goal criteria in that it is motivational because I want to help my mentees. No one needs to necessarily help me commit to my goal just because the motivation in itself is reason enough to commit to my mentees and their needs. To make my goal possible, I need to make sure I have time set aside to dedicate to my mentees and any given point throughout the semester. Tracking my progress shouldn’t be an issue because morally, I either will or will not feel like I have given my mentees the time of day and met every request they have of me as the mentor.

ISCORE diversity event

I know it’s a long time coming but you are all now about able to read about my ISCORE diversity event yay!! I know it took place a couple of weeks ago but it’s still in my memory as a very eye opening session I attended.

The session I attended was circled around children literacy and diversity in books read at the children’s levels. What really captured my attention was how oblivious I was as a child in what I was reading. When we were given children’s books to read with the mindset of how much lack of diversity there was in some of the books, it amazed me how set every book was in showing how every child’s life should seem. The books captured the picture perfect family and living situations the majority of the time. Few also placed different races of people in classifications that we are exposed to every day in the real world.

This really brought my attention to how early society places labels into children’s mind of how families, children and people in general show look or what they should be doing in their everyday lives. I think back to my childhood and the books I read or was read to and I don’t really remember a lot of diversity at all. They were mostly about the classic families where there was a mother and a father where the father had an office job and the mother took care of the children and there was no such thing as financial issues or family crisis’.

I believe that this event was helpful in allowing me to broaden my horizons to maybe have a better grasp on what I allow my children and younger family members to read. By giving them books that diversify them in what they perceive people to look like and what they do on a daily basis, they will be better off in accepting diversity as an adult. This is an objective I know a lot of parents and people with younger family members are trying to accomplish. As a society, diversity is something that should be widely accepted and celebrated as a method of becoming more culturally united.

Week 10

The semester is really starting to feel like it’s on a downfall no till the end! I don’t know about all of you but I plan and will be busy busy busy these next 5 weeks!! One to last week’s class. We discussed facilitating learning and about how everyone has their different styles of learning. I discover that my top two ways to learn were verbal/linguistic and then body/kinesthetic.

I light to talk about things a lot, I have found that it helps me remember them better for when I might have to reproduce them in the future for either a test or just simply for my own knowledge. Not only do I reproduce things I have learned verbally, but also through visual notes where I rewrite, highlight, reread, and reproduce learned items continuously. When it all comes down to it, the more I reproduce what I am learning, the more familiar with it I am and the better I am at the better I am able to remember important knowledge.

By choosing body/kinesthetic as my second best method of learning, I was thinking in broadness about how I like to exercise and pay attention to health. While I am exercising (like on a machine for example), I find that I am more alert and pay attention to what I am reading better so I’m not just reading things over and over again that do not get registered into my memory. Not only do I learning things better academic wise, but I also feel better physically by exercising. I have always known to be true that the better I feel physically, the easier things come and better I am at arising challenges academically as well as in other areas of my life.

Learning is another thing that is unique about every individual. I realize that we all learn differently and need to be taught differently. I plan to better understand all methods of learning so in the future those that I teach can learn the material in any way that suites them best.

Week 9

Hello to all!! Time to get back at it this week now that spring break is over. We focused on the area of communication last class period. It is a part of our lives that is constant but thought about rarely. The activity we did was a good representation of how communication can be interpreted in numerous ways and understood on different levels. I had mentioned in my answer to the question of the day that my most ineffective time of communication rests within my daily tasks and interactions. I tend to think everyone automatically knows what is going on in my head and can always interpret my thoughts. Therefore I often times get upset when people can’t read me the way I think they should.

One of the main problems that lead to divorce in today’s society, which has over a 50 percent divorce rate, rests within communication between the couples. Both men and women communicate differently. Women tend to enjoy playing guessing games with their feelings. Females never act as though they want people to know what they are thinking or feeling even though they hope people will figure it out for themselves. Men are more direct, they will either tell you how they feel when it is important, or they will just let it brush off their shoulder. I know I am not a male and cannot verify this is the way males communicate. I just know what I see through observation and what I have learned in classes involving male and female communication.

I truly believe communication is the most simple alteration that can be made in a lot of people’s lives to fix much bigger problems. If everyone changed the way they communicated so they became more effective, more major problems could be identified and fixed. Not only problems within relationships but problems globally among different countries.

The same principle that shows communication as a consistent part throughout our daily lives also needs to apply to the thought about daily communication where we should constantly think about the way we communicate more while we are communicating. It is something I plan to work on in my daily activities and interactions.

Week 8

Only one more week until break!! I don’t know about everyone else but I am ready for a break. Maybe read a book that’s not a textbook for a change!

Anyways, on to the assignment. This week we were targeted towards diversity in the class activity and in the ISCORE participation. Growing up I was not exposed to a whole lot of diversity. My high school was majorly of white ethnicity with only a few African Americans and Hispanic ethnicities and zero Asian origins if I remember correctly. When I came to Iowa State at first it was a bit difficult to get used to the different cultural backgrounds of my new student peers. But the longer I have been on this campus, the easier it has been to see all the variety of people around me

This may not be the same for everyone however. There are some people who I’m sure cannot get used to being around people who are a lot different them they are. Then on the other side of the continuum I’m sure there are the kinds of people who, ever since they were born, have been used to being exposed to various cultures.

I believe I am a person who hasn’t been exposed to a lot of cultural diversity growing up, but I know that I work to accept people who are different. We are all unique individuals and when we recognize that, I believe we are more likely and willing to accept other people’s diversity and ‘uniqueness.’

My ISCORE event was targeted towards children’s literacy and the diversity that goes along with it. I didn’t realize how much there was diversity or a lock of in children’s story books. I know that it is not something that I would have paid a whole lot of attention to as a child but it makes me wonder what I would observe in my books I used to read or be read to as a child. I challenge all of you to take a gander at the books from your childhood and pick out the diversity in the characters. Whether it is for the better or the worst it’s still surprising to see what you observe.

See ya’ll Tuesday!

Week 7

Hope everyone enjoyed the class from this past week! Amy and I really wanted to challenge you all to take into consideration your areas of strength and weakness for the different values outlined in the chapter. Everyone did a really great job of critically thinking about each value and comparing it to the others. They were also asked to base their decision on what value they thought of as their strength and weakness on the ways their role model expressed these values.

When I was asking myself to pick out my areas of strength and weakness among the values from the chapter, it was a very hard decision. I felt that there were different levels of strength and weakness I had for each value. My opinion also was affected when I thought about how my role model expressed these different values. For instance, my mother is who I picked as my role model and when I think about how she has a sense of purpose throughout everything she does, it is much different to where I am in my sense of purpose for my daily life. I feel as though I have a sense of purpose and direction every day to a certain degree. But my mother has a much greater purpose and overall sense of knowing of how her day is going to progress and what she needs to accomplish. This is a prime example of how I can look at a value as a strength in one way, and then re evaluate it in a different perspective and realize that I still have certain weaknesses about it that I can improve.

I will always be learning and growing throughout my entire life so there is nothing wrong with taking a step back every once awhile to re evaluate yourself and make necessary alterations to become stronger in areas needed. As peer mentors, we can guide our mentees into helping them discover their strengths and weaknesses as they venture into college. Hope you all learned a lot from this chapter and activity!

week 6

This week was a particularly interesting class just because we were all asked to further examine ourselves and how we are self aware. It was more of a personal class for me when we were asked to share something significant in our lives that made us who we are now. It was hard to pinpoint a specific occurrence in my life that made me to who I am because there are lots of things that have happened in my life that have shaped me.

This exercise helped clarify what I will need to do as a peer mentor to help my mentees become more self-aware as they grow into their college experience. I was told that in order to help someone else become more self-aware, I need to be able to be self-aware as well. Activities like the one we did and consistent self-reflecting are all ways that I can allow myself to be more self-aware and then in turn have the ability to talk to my mentees about their issues and occurrences that have formed them.

In my recitations this fall with my mentees, I can incorporate ‘self-awareness’ activities that will allow them to have the opportunity to self disclose what they feel. Since this is a method that helps me become more familiar with aspects about my life, I hope that they can reflect on their past experience to put things together about how they are as a person today.

The types of questions that I could ask my mentees to make them reflect more and become self aware are all questions that make them think. Questions such as asking them to look back to their childhood and remember things that may have affected their disposition in scenarios today, just as Allison had said that she was always told as a child to never speak unless she was spoken to so now she relates that to her current issue with nervousness during interviews. Another reflecting-type question could be about my mentees reflecting on their past and present relationships with people in their lives, important to or unimportant.

Three goals I have to improve self-awareness rest within the areas I have to most weaknesses which are the areas of emotional awareness. I want to be able to become more confident with myself and the way others see me. I want to be able to adjust to changes in my life with more ease. And I want to be able to have a more positive and uplifting attitude towards everything in my life.

Week 5

Happy Valentine’s Day to all!! A wonderful day to remember that no matter what, you are loved  This past week we discussed our future relationships we must establish with our mentees. Deb and Joey did an excellent job in involving the class is some active skits that helped us visualize possible scenarios we may be presented with in our future peer mentor/mentee relationships.

The chapter discussed different components to establishing and maintaining healthy relationships with our future mentees. Ground rules are outlined as honesty, commitment, boundaries, confidentiality, and expectations.

The honesty component points out the essential need for equality between the mentor and mentee in their levels of trust for each other. If we expect honesty from our mentees then we must also be honest with them. I try my hardest to be honest in all of my relationships and in return I want others to be honest with me. Relationships can be a lot deeper and clearer when there is honesty as a foundation.

Commitment is one of my biggest areas of attention when I look at relationships that I have. If I’m going to be willing to commit to someone and/or something I expect the same in return. It drives me crazy when someone says they will do something and then do not commit to it. In my opinion, having mutual commitment is one of the post important areas to establishing and maintaining a healthy relationship.

Clarifying boundaries is one of the more challenging components to a peer mentor/mentee relationship. We have to remember that even though we still are students and peer mentors we are also an authority figure. I know I want my mentees to be able to trust me and know what they can come to me with anything. I also want them to be very aware that the relationship between us should be treated as any instructor to student relationship.

The confidentiality component is another important part to a mentor/mentee relationship that kind of goes along with the honesty component. I want my mentees to be honest with me as I will be honest with them. But I also want the confidentiality to always exist within that honesty. It’s another important foundation to trust that builds a healthy relationship.

The final part to developing a healthy relationship with my mentees lies within the expectations between both of us. They expect to learn from me, trust me, and have me there for them as their mentor. They rely on my and I expect to be able to rely on them too. Even though we each have our own expectations in our peer mentor to mentee relationship, it is also important to define a line in unrealistic expectations. When we know what to expect in a relationship, it clarifies all other essentials to establishing and maintaining our healthy peer mentor/mentee relationships.

Week 4

This week’s chapter had various breakdowns to it that I found very insightful to my future peer mentor and mentee relationships.

The first breakdown addressed was the peer mentor role as a trusted friend. Building trust between yourself and your mentee is a very important initial foundation to creating a trusted friendship and a connection to the rest of the 5 roles of being a peer mentor. By creating a trusting friendship as a peer mentor, mentees will be more willing to learn from you in their college experience.

The second breakdown was the connecting link of a peer mentor. We as peer mentors have been on campus and been involved a lot more than the new mentees have. We can be there to help link our mentees to different organizations, clubs, and events that fir their interest and will benefit them all around.

The third breakdown was about being a learning coach. The idea of this role is to urge your mentees to work hard academically to meet there goals in order to successfully move on to a great career. By teaching your mentees how to learn and achieve goals they will receive character traits that are essential to many important things in their adult life.

The fourth breakdown out of the five roles of a peer mentor is the role of being a student advocate. There are going to be mentees that have issues arise that you may not be able to handle just being their peer mentor. However, as their peer mentor you are aware of the different services ISU has to offer for advising and support as well as your mentees rights and responsibilities.

The final breakdown is you role as a peer leader. This role is used to inspire goals and visions into your mentees just based on what they can see through you and what you’ve accomplished so far through your college career. When they see what all you as their mentor have accomplished and where you’re headed, your mentees will hopefully become excited about creating goals for themselves so they too can have great success in everything they aspire to.

When I was a freshman, my peer mentor did a great job of combining all of these roles and helping me through my first semester. They built a relationship with me, created connections for me as I needed them, coached me through my academics, were there as a resource for any support I needed, and inspired me to create goals and aspirations for myself in my upcoming college adventure.

Week 3

This week we went over our Myers-Briggs type indicator in class where I learned some things about myself that I had never really thought about before but had come to find that it was very true. My personality reading was ISFJ; introversion, sensing, feeling, and judging. None of these really surprised me until I read a little more about what they all meant and represented about me. The introversion makes sense because I am a pretty quiet person and it takes a lot to get to know me really well. The sensing describes me in a way where I can be practical and think about everything in terms of how it makes sense in my everyday life, but I also know that I am not always like that. I think that would explain why I am not very strong towards the sensing side of the spectrum. I am very much of a feeling type where I am compassionate and accepting. I always have been a sensitive person in my own way and in terms of other people so it is no surprise to me that this is the most extreme of my personality indicators. The last of the personality type was the judging, which makes sense to me in terms of how I act and feel but isn’t always the case. I like to accomplish things on time, abide by a schedule and make some plans, but I am also a very big procrastinator! I might get a good start on things but I seem to always wait to the very last opportunity to complete them. I don’t like the feeling of cutting things close to the deadline but it always seems to happen that way in everything I do.

This week we also attended some leadership workshops that were educational and advantageous to us in our present and future mentoring experiences. I felt the most advantageous one was the workshop where we talked to career services personnel from different colleges in Iowa State about how to incorporate leadership and mentoring experiences into our resumes. I learned a lot of helpful hints I was unaware of and aim to edit my resume to represent my leadership experiences better.

There was a lot put into this week that was very beneficial for me as a future mentor. I really learned a lot about myself and how I can better portray the person I am and the things I have accomplished to other individuals.

Week 2

The liaison between college and high school rests within the peer mentors of a student’s life. Their transition into anything is impacted by the people they look up to. I understand my job as a peer mentor is to be that liaison to aid in the transition from college to high school.

This past week in class we were asked to reflect back to our first year of college, even our first few days in a college environment. I had never really reflected back to those days and when I did, I remember being so many things you don’t think of an 18 year old feeling. I was scared, lost, confused, and didn’t know which foot to put in front of the other. The Hixson program really helped put things into perspective for me. It helped me outline goals for myself, meet some new people, but most importantly it helped me learn various resources and traditions at Iowa State.

I take what I learned in my very first experiences in college and use them to make better decisions as I grow. It is why my goals change as I progress through my life. My priorities alter all the time as I learn from my every day occurrences

As a peer mentor, I guide my mentees through their transition to college from high school and help them make attainable goals. I know that those goals will constantly change, but at least it will be a start into the right direction for them. They will make the adjustment into their new life and work to grow as better individuals by creating all new goals and all new priorities.

They will look back and evaluate the change in themselves and their life experiences just as I have, and hopefully feel a sense of accomplishment for how far they have come and a sense of excitement for where they are going.

Week 1

A peer mentor has a lot more to its title than it looks. It is more of a process of taking steps to become a person in which the term peer mentor defines. The book defines a peer mentor as a student who has learned from experience and has developed skills to successfully guide other students through college.

In addition to taking the steps to complete the process of becoming a peer mentor, you must also have the desire and qualities necessary within to be a successful peer mentor. In everything people do they must have qualities to carry out tasks. They can vary based on the task being carried out, but there is always a foundation of qualities like responsibility, honesty, loyalty, reliability, trustworthiness, etc.

The qualities I possess that fit the general definition of a peer mentor would create more of a description rather than simply a list of things. I have had experiences that could be beneficial to others I mentor because I have learned from every experience. When developing a great deal of knowledge from experience, it makes you wise in ways that you cannot simply learn through a class or out of a textbook. My experiences so far in life have come from all extremes. I’ve had terrible times and I’ve had great times, each of them that I can take and figure into some new experience for myself.

I have always loved to help people. I thrive on being able to get a person somewhere they want to be, but can’t get there on their own. As a peer mentor, I can be a ‘go-to’ person for my mentees in all their times of trouble. As a junior at a university like Iowa State, I believe I have the excess knowledge I need in order to give helpful advice that can be trusted. Trust is the foundation I plan to build in all of my relationships with my mentees. By building a foundation to a successful relationship, I can create a truly amazing first experience for my mentees as they step into a new adventure.