U101 Peer Leader Self Analysis

In life you are going to be constantly challenged by things whether you want to be or not, but what is important is how you handle yourself in the face of those challenges. Do you shy away and let the challenges beat you or do you take them on, thoroughly accomplish them, and become a better person because of the trial that you endured? These are the experiences in life that mean the most to me. People in my life challenged me and presented me opportunities because they knew I could handle it and that it would help to shape me. Others may need the same push in recognizing the challenges that will help them and the encouragement to take part in them. It is incredibly important that you challenge others in the same that you have been challenged

After having made the decision to pursue the professoriate after graduate school, I knew that my first step was to determine if I enjoyed or was good at teaching. I had never thought of myself as a teacher before, or even truly as a mentor, though looking back I have been both for other students in the organizations that I am a part of. This mentorship and teaching felt different than the teaching that I would take part in during my time as a U101 Peer Leader though. My time teaching others in the organizations I was in felt natural, just a product of my position in the group, while teaching as a Peer Leader felt more unnatural, like an act that I was putting on. Through my time in the EDLP course I learned how to write detailed lesson plans, to effectively instill information unto the students, using activities and projects that would raise their retention rates. I also learned how to be their link to resources on campus, and how to be a point of contact in difficult times in their academic or personal lives. Gradually that feeling of it being an unnatural course of action faded away and I became more and more confident in being a peer leader. This course helped me to determine that I was able to teach and challenge a wide range of students while also equipping me with the skills necessary so that I could be an effective teacher. More importantly, I learned that

The application process was unique in that I had to complete two applications. One was sent to several schools that I would be willing to do research at over the summer, including Ohio State University, University of Minnesota, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The second was constructed by and sent only to the University of Michigan and was of a much higher caliber than the previous application. As well, the application to Michigan was vastly different from the application I completed for inclusion in the McNair Post Baccalaureate Achievement Program. This application, as I have seen this semester in applying to graduate schools, was night imperceptible from a graduate application. It included all the same parts and was held to an incredibly high standard, as Michigan takes an enormous amount of pride in the students who take part in their summer research programs. This was a challenge that I was not ready to face going in but I had my eyes set on the University of Michigan. Michigan was quickly becoming my top choice for graduate school, it currently still is, and I saw this as a great opportunity to not only gain more research experience but to experience the Ann Arbor atmosphere to determine if I would be content living there through my graduate school career. IN the