A weekend of realization for emerging leaders

As the city skyline began to vanish out of sight, the vans began to head toward our destination. Upon departure, we were headed for the Jersey shore, but after participating in this adventure, a new destination became apparent. Not one of physical location, but one of . limitless potential for the future.

On Jan. 31, 21 students boarded vans for a free weekend away from the hustle and bustle of campus life. This particular group of students consisted of volunteers. Some came for curiosity, others for hope of one day landing a good job and others to hopefully meet new people with similar views and ideas. Unbeknownst to us, we were just pawns in the game we were getting ready to partake in.

Our skillful leaders, Andrew

King and Emma Legge, had an eventful night and day already planned. Our first evening had a specific agenda of getting the students to break down the barriers each had set up when encountering new people.

Each student stated their name, favorite color, car they could most identify with and specific fictional character with whom they identified.

As the group began to speak, the overall theme was BMWs, sports cars and cartoon characters. This broke the ice. We then began to laugh and joke and the tension that was once thicker than the Chicago fog, began to dissipate and even disappear. The next piece of our puzzle was laid before our eyes, a test not of acquired knowledge, but of personality traits and behavior.

The results produced new meanings to old terms. Like extrovert, introvert, feeler, thinker, judge, intellect and intuition. These labels are placed upon us early in life and we do not know what they mean. But sitting in the room, it was like a giant light bulb lit up for the first time. For the first time in our young lives we were something other than someone's label board. This exercise taught us what our skills are.

For example, a judge was someone who saw that everything had an end to a beginning.

The students began to see that these labels were not bad and could actually be used towards something good. I learned that being extroverted meant that I intend to use the energy of others in order to get things done.