LDRS Podcast #4

The host of the Senior Season Podcast reflects on three courses she took at Virginia Tech. The first course, Marketing 4964, involved writing a grant proposal to support programs in African schools. The second course, Communications 2094, focused on diversity and inclusion issues. The third course, Journalism 4830, was a sports media capstone that highlighted the host's experience as the only female student. All three courses aligned with the social change model of leadership and allowed the host to grow and gain confidence in her abilities. She is grateful for the diverse range of classes she took at Virginia Tech. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the Senior Season Podcast in Leadership Edition. This is Episode 4, and I'm your host, Allie Pearl. Today, we have a really fun episode going down memory lane of my time at Virginia Tech. We're going to be taking a look at three courses that I took during my time here. I'm a senior now, so I've taken plenty of classes, lots of experience in different types of classes, different teaching styles, so many different things. Today, we're going to go through and look at three key courses that I took, kind of reflect on the social change model of leadership, and how my time in those courses kind of corresponded to the model. Let's hop right on in. First off is a big one. It is Marketing 4964. It was my field study. It was a class I took when I was abroad, and I loved this class. It allowed me to assist in writing a grant proposal, and I just grew so much from this class. So kind of the outcomes of it, we got to work in a group to create a grant proposal that reflects our learning and experiences from our time abroad, and we collaborated as a group to come up with a grant proposal to support our partnering programs in schools in Africa. So right off the bat, how does this connect to the social change model? Well, first off, the group value collaboration. We got to bring our individual ideas to the group, and as a group, use these ideas, collaborate as one another to build a grant proposal, and overall, just build the strongest proposal possible to support the partnerships that we had in Africa. So I think the grant proposal was the main assignment that we worked on in this class that we physically got to present to our professor. It was a great opportunity, great experience, and it allowed me to draft an actual grant that had the potential of getting funded, and it's really showed me that the impact I can have on my future and just on other people in the future and working through something as significant as writing a grant, it really can change people's lives. So the next class was my Communications 2094, which was Communications and Issues of Diversity, and this class was so interesting to take. I got to learn about a variety of real-world issues surrounding diversity and inclusion and how it connects to the field of communication. So I really deepened my understanding and knowledge about how to talk about different topics of diversity. It was a great class to take, kind of different from what we usually take within a communications and sports media major, so it definitely was an eye-opening class. For the social change model, it really hit on the individual value of consciousness of self in tough situations. I now know how to be conscious of what I say, my body language, verbal and nonverbal, so many different things that I'm now aware of because of this class because there are so many DEI issues, from personal issues to working within a group and working in a team on a job to then just overall the work environment and society as a whole, DEI issues are left and right. So this class really opened up my eyes to these issues, how to kind of attack these issues and really just learn about them. We got to do a project that we examined a DEI issue in a piece of media and I did the show Gossip Girl and it really just allowed me to see how prevalent DEI issues are in life and were in that show. It was just an interesting assignment to do and right off the bat when I thought about this class, it was something I thought of, so it really stuck with me. Finally, the last class I'm going to touch on is my senior capstone for my sports media and analytics major. It is the Journalism 4830 for the Sports Center. It's the capstone for SMA majors. We really put together all the pieces from our classes over the past three years and projects throughout the semester. I love this class. One little note about this class though is that I'm the only female. There are 13 of us and I'm the only girl in the class. So it definitely describes how the workforce could be for me going into the future. Sports is a field heavily dominated by men, so I really am using this class as kind of a stepping stone into the future and what it could look like. So it definitely is interesting to kind of walk in every day and see the dynamic of the class, but it really is allowing me to just grow comfortable within myself. So to the social change model, it really hits on the individual value of commitment because I am pushing myself to be the best version of myself in this class in every single assignment I submit and also just show the guys that even though I'm a female, I can do the same work as you if not better. So I'm really committing myself to the task of pushing myself and adding these projects to my personal portfolio and just being confident about them. This class is really allowing myself to see all the work and all the growing and learning I've done over the past three years at Tech. It is such a fun experience to just see it all come to life in front of me every single day that I go to this class. And one assignment that we did that has already stuck with me was a video feature story. And it was just really similar to what I could see myself doing in the future. So it was really fun to do. It kind of made an impact on me because I was just really confident in what I put out there. And it really allowed myself to see that going forward, whether it be grad school or a job in the future, wherever I end up, I can feel confident doing the work because I've grown so much as an individual and it's just really exciting to see that come to life. So yeah, in a nutshell, that is really three courses, three really different ones, I think, that had an impact on me through my time at Virginia Tech. They all have affected and impacted me in different ways, but I am so grateful for the diverse range of classes I've been able to take with my time at Tech and just really allowing myself to grow as an individual through the courses. So thank you all so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode and I will see you all next time with a new fun topic that we're going to hit on for the Senior Season Podcast Leadership Edition. Thanks, y'all.