Royals 17

Surprisingly the 2020 leadership presentation was my most important leadership experience. We had no clue what we were going to present and in fact, we only managed to come up with a decent idea by combining multiple tiny ideas. Our group consisted of students who weren’t very motivated by the project and didn’t communicate well with others outside their friend group. I was apprehensive to step into a leadership role, but I learned through this experience that someone must step up and bring order to chaos. Our group was unorganized in every aspect from coming up with an idea, planning and practicing for the presentation. One example, we scrambled to assign roles and responsibilities last minute. I also wasn’t given the slides that I had been working on and was unfamiliar with the newer slides. Somehow, even with different slides, I became overconfident in my ability to present the information we hadn’t fully grasped as a group. I believe it was because I rocked a presentation during that week in class, so I assumed that I could do it again. I was so overconfident that when a friend offered me a notecard, I rejected it. A reason for my failure was during the practice and the real presentation, I relied on the slides to be behind me. When I turned back the day of the presentation, I couldn’t see it at all. My inexperience in giving presentations caused me to panic and I failed to do my part as one of our group’s presenters. After the presentation I felt embarrassed for failing to represent my school properly, letting my teammates down during the presentation, and not taking every step leading up to it with more urgency and attention to detail.

I learned that teamwork does make the dream work, also that you only get one chance to impress a sponsor. Taking a more structured approach up top would have helped us limit confusion about what our topic is about. It is important to consider others’ ideas to help land a single idea that we all can work on as a team. Putting more thought into our ideas by polling &&&&&&&&&&& students about what changes they would like to see in their school would have been a great start and an opportunity to connect with our peers. We learned that our presentation failures were on us because we didn’t put enough effort into strengthening our team and the work suffered. The organization is a must for any project, especially one that relies on a large group to collaborate. The blame also falls on me for not accepting the generous offer of the notecard and communicating better with my team. Our project and the presentation were not limited, which we should have used to express our project more creatively. We also learned that a group needs a leader who can hold authority, encourage others, gather information, know when they are wrong, and take in others’ opinions with some scrutiny. I learned the major differences and similarities between real-world presentations compared to classroom presentations, such as knowing the layout of where the presentation will be held, how to present your presentation, and determining who will present for the group.

I was inspired by this experience to take lead on future endeavors if no one qualified will step into the role. I see now I need to further improve my public speaking skills. Education has already been a big part of my life because of dual enrollment, but I was able to see the professionalism of the real world and what it takes to pitch an idea to an active audience.

Since this experience, I wanted to become more educated in how to present myself, my future projects, and how to combine these elements. This experience allowed me a lot of growth opportunities and it inspired me to want to work with others more often. Stepping out of your comfort zone and failures allows for a lot of opportunities to improve and grow.

I was very inspired by this failure, that I decided it was time to try to join other programs and become active in extracurriculars, such as Superintendent Students Advisory Committee, 20/20 Leadership, Robotics Club, Student Ambassador, Student Council, Federal Reserve Student Board of Directors, National Honors Society (NHS), KU Gear Up.

Recently my friend who is a junior wanted to know why students from &&&&&&&&&&& and other schools couldn’t choose to take only the required classes necessary for graduation during their senior semesters, so if they were on track then it would be only a few classes. That day I mustered the courage to stand up and speak to the superintendent. I couldn’t have imagined sharing my opinions openly as few as two years ago. These experiences have inspired me to work hard for my education and to continue my academic achievements in college and then into the workforce. I’ve been inspired to look for more opportunities and challenge myself to try new things.

I come from a low-income household, so I thought of only in-state college but was inspired to look for even greater opportunities through this experience because money is out there you just have to know where to look.