Royals Essay 18

My most important leadership experience during high school was junior year during the 20/20 Olympics. The 20/20 Olympics was a competition between different schools to come up with an idea to help something that needs to be fixed in the school you attend, and you get money to help with the idea if you place. My group and I all had to become leaders in that moment because we wanted to make a change in our school. We came up with the idea of Bogart’s Board. Bogart’s Board was essentially made for our principal, Dr. Bogart, to make a better connection with the student body. The way we wanted to do that was by having two or three students from each grade on the board, where they could give Dr. Bogart feedback on different problems affecting the student body that we could work as a team to fix. During this time, there were ups and downs, such as communication, time management, and coming up with an idea in general, but we managed through them and worked efficiently. My role in making Bogart’s Board was to ensure everyone was on task and that everything got done correctly. It was a little frustrating at first, but I learned that everyone’s life is full of challenges, and they cannot always be on time, which is okay. This led to my first big lesson: not everyone works on my time. This was hard to understand at first, but at the end of the project, when everything came together, it was worth it. When we were presenting our projects to every participating school, it made me realize that everyone has a different mindset. Everyone’s ideas were so creative and unique. When it was my group’s turn to present, it was really nerve-racking. Having to present in front of a big crowd and judges was a big challenge for me, but I learned that once you start, it gets better in the end. Even though I did not have a super long speaking part, it was still a big challenge I overcame. After presenting about the Bogart’s Board project, we heard everyone clapping and saying it was a good idea. It made me really happy hearing all of the positive feedback, but the thing that made me feel the best was knowing that we did a good job and worked very hard as a group to get it done. In the end, we got second place for our project. It was the best feeling because we knew our group persevered together, even through the hard times, and it all paid off. It inspired me to further my education because then I knew I could present a big project in front of hundreds of people and judges. I felt confident I could do that in college as well. For my career, I want to become a forensic scientist. Becoming one would be my dream job. After learning more about it has made me want to become one even more, but the main reason why I would want to become one is that it helps people. Most people do not realize the depths of forensic science. Not only does it help get the victim justice, but the family as well, and that is why I want to become one. Helping others is all I want to do in life, which is why we came up with the idea of Bogart’s Board. We wanted to help the student body feel more comfortable in saying what is wrong and how we can help fix it. Also, doing the project inspired me to further my education because it taught me how to speak comfortably in front of crowds, which ties into becoming a forensic scientist. Becoming one, you would have to speak on a stand during a trial if you were a part of the crime scene investigation, taking evidence and telling what you learned about it. After knowing I can talk in front of a big crowd like that during the presentation, I know I can talk to a judge or the jury. Even though it is a completely different atmosphere, I will still know that I can talk without being nervous or scared. It also does not just apply to my career; it also applies to my daily life. I work, and I am still in high school, so learning to talk to new people is an important skill. This is especially true if you work retail, which I do. When I first started working retail, I did not know how to talk to customers, but after working there for two years and having my experiences with 20/20, I learned that communicating with new people is not that difficult. Then, being a high school senior has brought so many new opportunities to me. We have a class called Capstone, which has given me the chance to learn more about my future career and make new connections as well. At the end of our senior year, we have to present everything we have done for the Capstone class, including our internships, websites, and research papers. This will be easy for me because I got to learn about working with different kinds of people and speaking in front of a big crowd because of the great opportunity I got during my 20/20 Leadership Olympics.