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.