Fun week, even more fun weekend! My parents and sister visited me and we went up to L.A. for the weekend. Saturday was their anniversary, so my sister and I met with my sister’s best friend and her boyfriend for dinner and explored the city.
This week was a little crazy, and I was a bit overwhelmed with projects. However, one thing that I have learned about myself is that I love being busy. I much prefer the stress and obstacles that come with being busy to the boredom and calm of not having enough to do.
The “artwork” that you see above is one of many projects I just recently ramped up this week. As I mentioned earlier, I am the newly hired Web & Social Media Coordinator for the Hixon Center for Sustainable Environmental Design at Harvey Mudd College (wow, that’s a mouthful). Although Professor Srebotnjak hired me quite a few weeks ago, I haven’t been able to start my work because of logistical obstacles (IT help needed for the website, dialogue with HMC Communications office needed for social media).
However, this week, I had a meeting with Stephanie Graham, the Director of Communications for HMC, and we discussed all the info and rules I’d need to start up the Twitter and Facebook for the Hixon Center. Since the Hixon Center is very much a part of HMC, I would need to follow Harvey Mudd’s “Identity Standards,” color palettes, font restrictions, etc. Although I was a little miffed reading HMC’s identity standards, I realized that any business with a brand, logo, seal, etc. would definitely have standards like this, if not more complex. Reading over the standards again, I noticed that their guidelines are really not even that complex and restrictive, as that of some large corporations might be. All this is great practice if and when I want to work for the communications office of any company or organization.
You can check out the Hixon Center profiles on Twitter and Facebook!
Another organization that I began working with this week is Know Tomorrow, an initiative founded by CoolGlobes, a public art project dedicated to spreading awareness of climate change. KnowTomorrow is a nationwide project whose mission is to engage millennials (i.e. college students) in the topic of climate change, from speakers series to daytime activities, all promoting awareness and action on sustainability and renewables. Over 60 colleges have signed up to host a Know Tomorrow Day, which will occur nationally on October 2nd.
Pomona, Pitzer, and Scripps have signed up as well, and the Know Tomorrow of the Claremont Colleges is the largest and most planned out thus far. I’ve been working with and communicating with a fellow rising sophomore at Pomona, Tom, who actually is the K-12 Education Director for the Claremont Energy Challenge. He wants to get the CEC involved in Know Tomorrow, so we’re hosting a booth at the event and our Exec Director, Devon Hartman, is going to be one of the evening speakers.
Know Tomorrow, like the CEC, is a new baby organization, and their goal is also to reach a large audience in a short amount of time. Granted, their target audience is much larger than ours, and their time frame is shorter. However, it’s important for groups like the two of us to help each other out, because our connections and resources are invaluable to the other. For example, we’ve had over 75 students at the Claremont Colleges express interest in helping out with the Claremont Energy Challenge, and we’re going to reach back out to them and ask for their interest in helping with Know Tomorrow. Similarly, we hope that Know Tomorrow’s national connections can help us out after their launch day on October 2nd, giving us possible leaders, recognition, or support beyond Claremont.
I had an interesting conversation recently with a high school student who told Devon that he wanted to help out with the Claremont Energy Challenge. He and I exchanged emails a few times, and I invited him to come up to our office and meet all of us and see possibly where he would be interested in lending his skills or time.
I truly forgot how awkward high schoolers can be. I feel so far removed from high school, but in reality, I was still in high school not 14 months ago! The student, a rising senior at Claremont High School, seemed a little lost when I spoke to him. He didn’t entirely know what he wanted to help out with, and where his interests lay—which is totally fine! There’s nothing wrong with not knowing what you want.
Devon and I had discussed making him a point person for our interactions at Claremont High. Next semester, we’re going to start going into schools, telling them about the CEC, and educating them on climate change/energy efficiency/what they can do to do their part. This is going to be a huge part of our Fall 2015 goals, and it’s about 25% of the overall GUEP metrics.
So, we thought it would be very helpful to have a connection or point person at Claremont High! Kristin Miller, our fantastic administrative assistant at the REC, has children who go to middle schools in Claremont, so she knows some of the teachers and administrators. However, we don’t yet have a contact at CHS, so this student could be our first connection there and give us teachers and administrators to contact.
When I brought this up with the student, however, he said something that really caught my attention. “Sure, I could help out, but I’m more of a follower than a leader...maybe I can find someone else to be the leader of that team.”
Oh man! That was one of the most defeatist statements I’d ever hard from a high schooler, and incoming seniors tend to be pretty glass-half-empty given the impending doom of college applications and decisions.
In the short 15 minute conversation I had with him, I could tell he didn’t feel entirely comfortable talking to people in general, but I chalked that up to a good bout of social anxiety and a routine lack of self-confidence.
His statement really made me think about leadership again. Are there people in this world who are born to be followers, and some who are born to be leaders? Don’t we all start out as followers and are gently molded by ourselves, our environment, and others to be leaders? Can’t we develop leadership skills if we put our minds to it and give ourselves the right resources? I’ve no doubt seen that done countless times.
Quick digression: At our Fourth of July parade, we were looking for a fearless leader to march at the front and lead our routine and chants. Jonathan Wilson, our main contact at the contracting/retrofitting company Home Performance Matters, stepped up to the plate. Upon first glance, he’s kind of an awkward person: unkempt ginger hair, beanpole tall and lanky, braces, ill-fitting clothes, middle-school style etnies. However, when he was up there leading our chant, he took on this whole new persona. He was confident, charming, and overall a very charismatic leader! I later asked Devon about Jonathan, and he said that Jonathan hasn’t always been like this—he used to be as awkward and uncomfortable as a middle schooler—but his new job at Home Performance Matters requires him to deal with a lot of clients and be a charming PR person, so he’s been taking leadership classes and participating in workshops that teach him some valuable leadership skills. Devon said he couldn’t have imagined the Jonathan of five years ago doing what he did on the Fourth of July.
This story is all to say that Jonathan shows we’re not born followers, but we can choose to be followers. Leadership skills can be so important in the workplace and in real life, as Jonathan has showed.
So, to hear this high school student be so resigned to the fact that he was a follower was pretty disheartening. Followers never make history! Followers don’t set examples, they, well, follow others’ examples. I would never want to label myself as a follower. Even if I don’t think I can quite be a fearless leader in all aspects of my life yet, I’m the type of person who takes the reins on group projects and makes decisions for the friend group. I want my voice and my opinion to matter, and I sometimes loathe having to take orders all the time.
I’m going to make it my goal to encourage this high school student to really try to become a leader, even if I have to force him out of his comfort zone! Even at CMC, I’ve been forced out of my comfort zone a good few times, and it’s what has made me a better public speaker, a better student, and a better leader. CMC says it values leadership, and I think that it also values the process of becoming a leader, implicitly encouraging its students to be leaders in any small way.