Leading by Example

What a whirlwind these past 2 weeks have been! The first 9 weeks came to an end and we participated in our first major event: Business Symposium.

Business Symposium was a blast! I loved connecting with others and participating in the various breakout sessions. As an ISM 2 student, I was less nervous about the event because I knew what to expect and had such an amazing time last year. The breakout sessions allowed me to share ideas about my Original Work, outlined several methods to connect with professionals, and provided advice to make our ISM projects and digital presence positively stand out. Just like last year, my favorite part was the interview sessions. Although I wasn’t able to connect with anyone in the psychology industry, I enjoyed explaining psychology’s significance to me and what pushed me to pursue it in the first place. 

An exciting addition to my Business Symposium experience was my ability to volunteer and present about Professional Communication in the afternoon session. I presented with 2 other ISM 2 students to cohesively and successfully share important information about the process of reaching out to professionals and share about our overall experiences from last year. The experience was beneficial for me because I practiced my presentation skills, adapted to include or remove information to further benefit the group, and answered students’ questions. I am so glad I was able to volunteer at an event that means so much to me. 

After our Business Symposium we gave verbal feedback in class and written feedback on a survey. Because I experienced the symposium last year, the information presented was not as beneficial to me, but I believe it was still beneficial for ISM 1 students. One suggestion I shared was to have a separate breakout session for ISM 2 students outlining what it means to be an ISM 2 peer mentor and the expectations set for them. Other people also gave helpful feedback such as splitting up the mass networking session in the beginning to make it less overwhelming and having professional panels tailored more toward ISM students’ personal career fields, not just business or technology. 

We submitted our first Evidence of Learning which is an assessment that gives ISM students more freedom to choose what to write about as it is designed to showcase individual learning. I wrote about my experience at this year’s Business Symposium and went into detail about my interview sessions and experience presenting. 

Lastly, we started the process of cold emailing/cold calling professionals to start the informational interview process. I reached out to several professionals and am working on gaining more contacts to reach out to. It is a nerve wracking experience to initially start reaching out, however it is something essential and exciting to complete. I look forward to conducting more interviews this year!

It was amazing to see all of the preparation and hard work I have put in this far come to fruition. Our next major assessment is our Original Work proposal and I can’t wait to take all of these experiences and apply them.