When I joined Honors, I was intrigued by the program format based on the growth in the three competency areas of leadership, intercultural engagement, and research, scholarly, and creative activity. I recognized the more reflective nature of the program specifically appealed to me because I like to identify and contemplate change and growth in my life. I think a common misconception held by some students, certainly a few I have met, is that the competency-based curriculum used by the Honors Program at Mankato does not incentivize rigorous learning or accumulate in academic work to show as a result from the program, in comparison with other programs where skills are developed in specifically designed courses as opposed to experiences.  From my experiences and observations, such sentiments could not be further from the truth. Growing and challenging yourself academically is encouraged in the program, especially in research, scholarly, and creative activity where producing original research from one’s field is a requirement. Furthermore, by having experiences as the foundation for growth a more flexible and personalized portfolio is possible.

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My first experiences in the Honors Program started before I joined the program, a testament to personalized flexibility of the program. During my first semester of college, I undertook a Work Study Position at the Archives. This was a job I would continue throughout my time in college and each semester I continued to learn new things. Part of working in the archives entailed answering information requests and entering metadata, information about an item like a photo or other data. While completing such tasks provided ample opportunity to practice and develop my research skills, the most influential takeaway was regarding leadership. All the people I worked under at the archives perfectly demonstrated the leadership style that resonates with me the most, it consists of communication, flexibility, and trust. I was able to practice my leadership to some extent when collaborating with other student workers, but where I felt I was able to use and develop my leadership further would come in another experience.

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Another leadership experience I had that began before I joined the Honors program was a combination of participating on an Intramural Soccer Team and taking the Clifton Strengths-Finder. In this experience I analyzed how my strengths listed in the Strength-Finder report impacted my leadership. When doing so I realized how my strengths of restorative and developer correlated with my objective as a leader to have a collaborative work style and helping others take advantage of their strengths. My strength of connectedness was evident in the team itself because the whole purpose of the team was to bring a bunch of people together under a common interest. This also ties into intercultural engagement to some extent as the soccer team provided an opportunity for people from different countries and religious backgrounds to interact and learn about each other in a casual manner.

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Being the Editor for the Honors Beacon provided me the opportunity to utilize and develop my leadership style. I was able to implement a lot of what I had learned from observing others at the archives and use my strengths I learned about on the intramural soccer team. Knowing that a lot of students prioritized various things over the Beacon and had busy schedules, significantly influenced my approach to leadership as editor for the Beacon. I wanted to give the writers freedom to write about what they wanted and simultaneously not have the responsibility of having to write an article appear overwhelming. When I initially tried to recruit writers, I focused more on advertising the responsibilities that came with writing an article. I soon realized a more effective approach would be to emphasize how writing an article would allow students a chance to share their experiences or work with a larger audience. The later tactic proved to work much more efficiently. The largest responsibility that came with being editor was communicating with everyone and making sure everything was getting done in a timely manner. Although I never had to resort to any serious use of authoritative leadership, at times it became necessary to communicate with a slightly more authoritative phrasing. This experience also bolstered my belief and commitment to a leadership style based on transparency, communication, and collaboration.

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I found that the research experiences complimented each other very well and each had a specific takeaway contributing to my growth. The first research experience I had was writing a State of the Field Paper for HIST 415 England since 1603. It was a historiography essay, so I had to gather and synthesize around ten different sources that each contributed something different to the topic of fascism in Great Britain. By reading and determining the argument from the different sources I became more confident in my ability to analyze, summarize, and compare historical arguments on a topic. In HUM 450W Lincoln Legacy, I worked on exhibit text with a small group for the Abraham Lincoln statue that was recently moved to the Memorial Library. Because it was a group effort and intended to be exhibit text, there was an emphasis on objectivity and collaboration for a singular voice. Working on this project also entailed learning a lot about how the statue connected to the Dakota people and Mankato’s history. There were discussions at one point about incorporating different community interpretations of the statue based on different perspectives and experiences. While we did read about the history of the Dakota people in Mankato and Minnesota, directly hearing their views on a shared history would have been a great way to learn about another culture’s perspective and then compare it to other interpretations. This idea never came to fruition but was nonetheless an interesting conversation along the way. At the conclusion of the course, we presented the text we came up with to various members of administration including multiple deans and the university president. It was my first experience with disseminating my work, and I thought it went smoothly.

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My Capstone Paper for senior seminar focused on finding relevant primary sources and secondary sources and using them to create a thesis and support it.  From this research project and another longer research paper I wrote about the slave trade, I learned a lot about the research process. Picking a topic that had sources that were accessible and plentiful to support a longer paper was a lot more challenging part of the process than in smaller papers. When researching topics on other countries and looking for sources a couple of hundred years old, it can be challenging to find enough sources. I learned to let the sources guide me and develop a research question and thesis based off what the sources say. Additionally, I found it harder than expected to try and incorporate a new perspective by using sources that have been frequently cited for various arguments. Truthfully, I still have a lot of work to do in this area, but I am more familiar with the process now.

My experiences in intercultural engagement also built off each other. At the Upper Midwest Honors Conference I had the opportunity to present the work I had done in the Lincoln Legacy class and the reason for the creation of the exhibit. It allowed me to share what I know and something I participated in that is isolated to my college experience and Minnesota State University, Mankato.

 

In the Language Partners Program, I was able to learn more surface level information about Vietnam and Japan from my partners. This experience also helped me grow as a leader, specifically being able to determine the most effective approach to take in discussions that worked best for my partners. A major part of that was utilizing non-verbal communication to understand what my partners wanted and comparing that with what they said. In some instances, it seemed that they were too shy to ask for help, so non-verbal cues were useful. Another deeper theme was the importance attached to learning a second language. Both of my partners had been learning English since at least middle-school, conversely only one year of language was required for me in high-school.

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The difference in importance attached to learning a second language was corroborated on my Study Abroad Trip to Germany and Austria. During this trip the majority of Europeans I interacted with spoke English at least to some extent. On tours some guides apologized for their English. If the tables were turned, I would be ecstatic if I could speak that level of German to visitors because it was basically fluent. There also seems to be an expectation held by some Americans that they should not have to learn another language. I was quite surprised on my trip to see some students have short tempers with people who did not speak English. On the trip I also witnessed some larger cultural differences in politics and history. Germany was much less polarizing on controversial topics and seemed more willing to compromise on issues. Part of me being attentive to this was that the class I took for the trip researched a few topics prior to the trip to provide some context before traveling. I think research being used before travel can help people be more attentive to things they otherwise may not have considered. I took an ethno-relativist approach when visiting Germany and Austria and found a few things that stuck out to me. Two in particular were paying waiters and waitresses full time wages and the more developed transportation systems.

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Looking back, I wish I would have researched the Honors Program and applied for it my freshman year. The combination of joining halfway through my sophomore year and graduating a year early leads me to wonder what I potentially missed out on. In retrospect I really did not look hard for areas of improvement or opportunity my freshman year; I was content with the consistency I had become accustomed to after the first few weeks. Seeking and taking advantage of opportunities in all three competencies areas are something I think I would have done had I had the incentive provided by the Honors Program, to get out of your comfort zone and explore things that interest you.

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Throughout my time in the program, I have witnessed great growth in each of the competency areas. I am now confident in my leadership style, a democratic style by default, but ultimately one reliant on communication and fitting the needs of the situation and position I am in. When I am engaging with another culture, I will try to be self-conscious of my own biases and ethnocentrism and approach interaction with an open mind. When conducting research, I am now much more confident in each step of the process. Collectively, by documenting my experiences and how they contributed to my growth in each respective competency, I am confident I can continue to grow in each area and apply the skills I have learned in future endeavors.