My Strengths – Leadership And Creativity
When it comes to group projects, I usually do not volunteer for lead roles. This changed last year when I joined an internship with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), and I was chosen to lead a group. The program was called SMUD Energy Efficient Careers (SEEC). With this internship, I learned to communicate well with others, work efficiently and lead others. As a leader, I made sure group communication was priority, work was completed efficiently, and each member knew their role.
The program’s purpose was to teach interns about energy conservation and how to perform audits. Audits tested energy consumption. One audit we performed was at a firehouse to show energy consumption and ways to decrease use to save money. As a leader, I gave other members roles for performing audits. For example, two members checked watt usage, or how much energy was used for several appliances, such as ovens. Once all members were done with their roles, I gathered the team to check and share the collected information. I checked to make sure we had all the information needed to calculate energy consumption. Effective communication was critical for this part of the process. I made sure that any members paired for a role had the same information and they worked together effectively. More importantly, I made sure the team stayed on task. The different tasks were all important and critical in order for the project to be completed successfully. After the audit, we created an essay outlining our findings, their meanings, and recommendations to reduce energy consumption. For the essay, we had a deadline, and it was my job to make sure it was completed on time. Similar to audits, I divided other work and often checked in with members for quality and clear representations of our data.
This experience taught me what it takes to be a leader, such as being able to communicate with group members, and making sure work is done on time. When it comes to future group projects, I can now apply what I have learned and lead the projects.
I express my creativity through artwork, such as drawings and paintings. The way I see it, art is versatile and unique to each artist, so I try to develop my art style and show uniqueness in my work. I also like to create art because of the sense of pride and achievement I get afterwards.
When I first started creating artwork, I would draw my favorite cartoon characters. As I continued to draw and sketch more, I wanted to create my own artwork and to develop my creativity and art skills. For instance, with one of my work I was going to simply sketch a picture of a girl listening to music. However, I ended up creating a beautiful piece, in which the girl was surrounded by butterflies while listening to music. My inspiration for this piece was to come up with something that represented how music can make people feel free in their own world. This drawing was one of the first original artworks I created. With the way it turned out, it showed me that I am able to create original artwork, and I had a better sense of pride with this piece. Normally I draw, but recently I have been interested in other aspects of art such as 3D art. An example would be some angel wings that I created out of paper. In addition to making the feathers out of paper, I wanted to add some color to the wings and I experimented with various coloring options. Similar to my other art piece, I was also able to use my creativity and came up with another beautiful artwork. The more unique my artwork turns out, the more confident I become in my art skills and ability to create original pieces.
These are some examples of artwork that I have done, in which I take pride because they show my creativity and uniqueness. This ties to my plans for my future studies and career development because I can also apply my creativity in various ways, such as creating plans or blueprints for different projects.
