#9 - Reflection

I've gone through leadership training and personality testing almost yearly since I took my first leadership class in 7th grade, so when this class was offered as an elective I was really interested to see what more a structured course could bring me. Being on executive boards for student organizations and in Greek Life in college and having life experiences where leadership was necessary, I felt like I knew who I was as a leader even before coming to this class, but 14 weeks later I have a better grasp on who I am in leadership and follower roles. 

The first time I took StrengthsQuest as a sophomore, I completely agreed with my strengths (woo, futuristic, communicator, activator, adaptability) but when I got virtually the same response this year (woo, communicator, activator, adaptability, individualization) I thought it was very different than what I see in myself until I looked further into it. I love being a people-person an d but I don't want that to define me, and that's how I viewed my results from this assessment. Obviously being able to network and make connections with people is an extremely important part of being a professional and a person, so I value those strengths a lot, but I know I can't rely on my people skills to get me where I want to go. 

Talking about identities was really important because I know that my career is going to put me in situations where there will be be people from extremely different areas - geographically and personally. Understanding the privileges I have and the struggles others go through is only going to help me, as well as put my experiences into perspective. I know I have my own, but I also recognize how fortunate I am and a lot of the people I will work with are not as fortunate as I have been in my life. 

I really value the internal reflections we've done in class and through our assignments about our philosophies and plans, they've forced me to come to terms with the things I have to work on to become better but also how to use my strengths and do the things I'm good at and love to do. I'm really happy I took this class and will definitely use the things we've discussed and worked on in order to be a better leader as well as a better follower. 

#8 Peck's Theory

While initially reading Peck's theory, I immediately thought of most of the sports teams I had been a part of over the years, however the more I thought about what experience best exemplifies the stages, I thought of my study abroad trip to the Dominican Republic. The program was not through Ohio State, so there were students from different universities across the country, but the majority of us were on the same flight from Miami to Santiago, so as we found each other in the airport we quickly entered the pseudo community stage. We were all so excited to begin our trip together, everything was great. We sat near each other on the plane, made small talk, and tried to figure out how they did customs checks together.

Quickly we were thrown into activities and class, the chaos stage. We were given a placement test that divided the group into different groups based on our proficiency in Spanish and we decided what classes to take at the university. Every weekend we had pre-planned activities that some of the students were less than thrilled about and caused some friction between the students and our supervisors in the program. We all started to realize who we were going to get along with and our social groups were formed. There were never any real outward issues, but we knew that not everyone was going to be best friends. After some serious bonding time getting lost in the city and taking trips outside of those pre-planned by our supervisors, we took the emptiness path and reached the third stage. We put aside all the things that had divided us and made more of an effort to include everyone because we knew the group was pretty much all we had in this foreign country.


The program only lasted two months, so we didn't have a lot of time in the final stage of being a true, authentic community, but we got there and made sure we made the most of our time together. We made decisions that kept the group together on excursions even if that meant a few people sacrificing their first choice in activities. We danced at clubs and watched the NBA Finals together over free beer courtesy of the New Yorker who owned the bar we frequented. We did our final culture projects in groups, helped each other with the papers we had to turn in for our literature class, and took one last trip to the beach together.

#7 - Target & Non-Target Identities

The conversation about privilege in society is definitely a hot topic in society right now, and I think it is an incredibly important one. As we showed with the chain activity in class, there is so much more to a person than what we think we know by looking at them or even talking to them.

Being a woman in today's society creates struggles, and being a woman in sports creates very unique ones. Recently there has been a picture going viral of a text exchange where a man doesn't believe that a woman can be a baseball fan and challenges her to name the teams that comprise the NL East and she does so with flair, I was recently challenged in a similar way because I was wearing a jersey of my favorite team and a man said, "There's no way that's your jersey, you're not a fan. I bet you can't even name one player on the team." When I did name a few players on the team, he held up his hands in defense said "Okay, okay, no reason to be a bitch about it." This exchange was not the first like this in my life, and I'm sure it won't be the last I experience in my life. Women are called bitches or bossy when we are assertive and when we aren't, we are pushovers or weak, so in almost all aspects of life, we have to walk a very fine line with our interactions with peers.

A non-target identity I am identified as is white, although I am half Latina and my name reflects that, I don't look it, and therefore reap the benefits of being labeled as white. While out late at night at home (which is only about 30 minutes away from Compton, CA) I don't have to worry about being profiled as something that would get me in trouble, for my whole life I am at a lower rate for being arrested and incarcerated, and I am not discriminated against for being a member of a minority race. I am proud to be Latina, but I fully understand that having light skin is a a benefit overall and I just have to laugh it off and accept it when people say, "your name is Hernandez, but you don't look Mexican."

#5 - Random Act of Kindness

For my [not so] random act of kindness, I decided to help out one of my roommates. She has a habit of going to the gym at the worst possible times and often ends up walking home alone really late at night. She's a tough girl and can handle herself but you can really never be too careful. One night she decided really last minute to go to the gym and it was cold and raining and by the time she got done working out it was dark; so I went and picked her up from the gym. She was really grateful for it but also a little confused about why I was filming her getting into my car. Picking her up from the gym gave us both a sense of security because we didn't have to worry about her walking alone in the dark. 

#4 - Moral Muteness

A time I was morally mute was when I was interning in marketing and promotions. There were about 20 interns in our department and we were responsible for a lot of different aspects of games including all of the in-game promotional games and giveaways. For one of the promotional games we had, if the contestant on, they and everyone in their row gets a voucher for a free food item, but if they didn't win, the row behind them got the vouchers. More often than not, there were more vouchers than people in the row, and all of the vouchers had dates on them, as they can only be used during that specific game. On a few occasions during especially long days, sometimes interns would take the remaining vouchers and use the to get free food from the concession stands. As interns, we were given a lot of privileges and free things from the organization, but free food from concession stands was not one of those privileges. No one ever said anything to our supervisors because we never saw it was that big of a deal, most of the winners didn't use the vouchers, and the vouchers are taken into consideration when the organization budgeted for the vouchers being used by fans. Obviously it was against company policy and it shouldn't have been done, but I also don't feel bad about not telling our bosses because in the grand scheme of things, a few food items over the course of the season, as well as the other events that brought in revenue for the organization, really don't make that big of a difference. However, if I was in charge of the entire organization and I found out that interns were taking things even though they get a lot of other perks with their jobs, I'd be disappointed, but because it is accounted for in different ways I wouldn't be worried about the organization in general. Loyalty is one of my most important values and that includes being loyal to people but also to the team/organization. In this case, I was loyal to my coworkers because those relationships were more important to me than a few food items.

#3 - Implicit Bias

I took the bias quizzes for age, weight, and gender-career. Going into these I had my ideas about what they would say about me, considering my background, upbringing, and interests.

Before getting my results for the age bias quiz, I thought I would have a slight bias against elderly people because in all of my volunteer jobs, internships, and even organized sports, I have always been around supervisors and coordinators who were on the younger side of the "adult" spectrum. My parents are older than a lot of my friends' parents and I've been very aware, and a bit envious, of the differences in our family lifestyles. After taking the implicit bias quiz, it told me that I only have a "slight automatic preference" for young compared to old. I've always gravitated towards people around my age who are as independent as me, and I think that contributes to the bias the quiz detected  because we are all so independent that we aren't around adults as much as other people our age. Also, I think it is easier to empathize and identify with people my own age because we go through very similar things in life, however baby boomers and generations above went through very different things, so there's a large disconnect between those generations and ours.

My results for the weight bias quiz also didn't surprise me. Again, it said I have a "slight automatic preference" for thin people. As someone who has spent my entire life in organized athletics, and my childhood heroes were all elite athletes, I have become accustomed to people who work physically hard, and their bodies are how they make their life, so they are all in very good physical shape. I think as a female in the society we are in, where there is no "right" body to have and people are constantly shamed for being too fat or too thin, it is not uncommon to struggle with body image issues and constantly wanting to be thinner. Society definitely contributes to the idea that thinner is better and that weight is something that everyone needs to fix regardless of health issues.

The last quiz I took was the gender-career quiz, and on this one it showed that I have "little or no association between male and female and career and family." Again, this doesn't surprise me at all. As a woman who wants to go into a career that is overwhelmingly male-dominated and being pretty equally parented by two working parents, I don't really have anything to push me to be biased one way or another. Obviously in society, women have historically been seen and pressured into being the family side, and males to the career side, but that has changed and women are now more accepted in workplaces.

#2 - Relational Leadership

The Sandlot

The Sandlot team always encourages and empowers the other teammates and they come together for the love of their game and their friendship. When Benny first invites Smalls to play with them and realizes Smalls has no idea how to play baseball, he tells Smalls "just stand there and stick your glove in the air, I'll take care of it." Later, when they're trying to get the Babe Ruth autographed ball back, they all work together and create ideas of how to get it back, they all work together and encourage each other to get more creative once their first few attempts don't work.
After Smalls makes the mistake of stealing his step-dad's Babe Ruth autographed ball, the whole Sandlot gang comes together and puts their creativity and ingenuity to the test for the purpose of getting the ball back from the Beast.
At first, Benny is the only one to want to include Smalls into the group, the other Sandlot kids were very wary of adding a new kid to their team. However after spending time with Smalls, the rest of the team included him and they came together as a group to beat their rival team, and ultimately get the Babe Ruth autographed ball back.
Obviously, the boys know that there is some sort of creature on the other side of the fence, but they don't want to bother it or anger it at all and they don't want to knock on Mr. Mertle's door. Their decision to not mess with the large potentially dangerous creature is pretty ethical on their part, they not only want to protect themselves and their teammates, but they also know not to anger the Beast.