An explanation as to why I have set up this blog might be the appropriate starting point. As a new student at UMD, I have recently been accepted to the Blueprints Leadership Program. This blog is part of my curriculum. However, while this activity is something new to me, I look forward to the chance to utilize this unfamiliar tool. I also hope that I may be able to make this blog an asset in my goals of facilitating social justice, and see its usefulness grow past my participation in the program.
Coming from humble origins, I am the first person of my immediate family to obtain a college degree. Not to say that my parents ever discouraged my siblings and I towards higher learning, the concept is simply something that was not emphasized growing up in a broken home. However, after a long and winding path, here I am, in the pursuit of something better for myself.
I suppose as a non-traditional student, I should explain why I finally decided to pursue higher education, and in this explanation my interest in the Blueprints Leadership Program will become clear.
For as long as I can remember, I can remember feeling a call to my existence. In my younger years, I had believed that this calling was to enhance the enlightenment of the world through art. I felt it was my purpose to open minds, and through that, break down barriers. However, all of that changed in 2001.
It was the winter following the 9-11 attacks. As I watched the media-storm rumble across my country, a simple question continued to permeate my mind. "Why would someone want to create such devastation? What did we do to motivate these people to attack us like that?" I am a firm believer in cause and effect, and I was simply unable to believe that these attacks were unprovoked. So I started to pay closer attention to the actions of my government. Before this event I was politically apathetic like many Americans; but the reverberations of the event continued to pull at me. No longer did my goals of artistic enlightenment seem substantial; now they were superficial. I began to feel a new calling, a new purpose unfold. But as ignorant as many of my countrymen, I was unprepared to make any proper judgements or take any real action towards improvement.
It was at this time I began to make the changes necessary in my own life to work towards a better future. I went back to school, worked towards my high school diploma, and then enrolled in Oakland Community College. After quite a few bumps in my road and a lot of hard work, I earned my associates degree in liberal arts, and applied to U of M Dearborn.
And here I am today; it is my first semester at UMD, and I am looking for every opportunity to develop and polish my skills towards becoming an agent of change. After I was accepted to UMD, I spent the weeks before the beginning of the semester investigating the campus. I wanted to find every advantage and resource available to enhance my college experience; through my inquiries, I learned of the Blueprints Program. I decided that the program was exactly what I needed to supplement my education; it was perfect.
I anticipate that the Blueprints Leadership program will empower me in aspects that my curriculum cannot. I expect I will observe aspects of leadership that will awaken new ideas within me. I believe I will learn to apply theories of leadership to a productive use. I hope to finish the program working in a leadership position that will allow me to help those who are unarmed to help themselves and to foster a more just world.
Coming from humble origins, I am the first person of my immediate family to obtain a college degree. Not to say that my parents ever discouraged my siblings and I towards higher learning, the concept is simply something that was not emphasized growing up in a broken home. However, after a long and winding path, here I am, in the pursuit of something better for myself.
I suppose as a non-traditional student, I should explain why I finally decided to pursue higher education, and in this explanation my interest in the Blueprints Leadership Program will become clear.
For as long as I can remember, I can remember feeling a call to my existence. In my younger years, I had believed that this calling was to enhance the enlightenment of the world through art. I felt it was my purpose to open minds, and through that, break down barriers. However, all of that changed in 2001.
It was the winter following the 9-11 attacks. As I watched the media-storm rumble across my country, a simple question continued to permeate my mind. "Why would someone want to create such devastation? What did we do to motivate these people to attack us like that?" I am a firm believer in cause and effect, and I was simply unable to believe that these attacks were unprovoked. So I started to pay closer attention to the actions of my government. Before this event I was politically apathetic like many Americans; but the reverberations of the event continued to pull at me. No longer did my goals of artistic enlightenment seem substantial; now they were superficial. I began to feel a new calling, a new purpose unfold. But as ignorant as many of my countrymen, I was unprepared to make any proper judgements or take any real action towards improvement.
It was at this time I began to make the changes necessary in my own life to work towards a better future. I went back to school, worked towards my high school diploma, and then enrolled in Oakland Community College. After quite a few bumps in my road and a lot of hard work, I earned my associates degree in liberal arts, and applied to U of M Dearborn.
And here I am today; it is my first semester at UMD, and I am looking for every opportunity to develop and polish my skills towards becoming an agent of change. After I was accepted to UMD, I spent the weeks before the beginning of the semester investigating the campus. I wanted to find every advantage and resource available to enhance my college experience; through my inquiries, I learned of the Blueprints Program. I decided that the program was exactly what I needed to supplement my education; it was perfect.
I anticipate that the Blueprints Leadership program will empower me in aspects that my curriculum cannot. I expect I will observe aspects of leadership that will awaken new ideas within me. I believe I will learn to apply theories of leadership to a productive use. I hope to finish the program working in a leadership position that will allow me to help those who are unarmed to help themselves and to foster a more just world.
