Hector Luis Alamo, Jr.My experiences this semester have taught me to exercise more control over my life. Looking back on how I used to be at the beginning of the semester (by rereading my older posts on my blog and tracking my inner growth from the beginning of the semester until now), I’m satisfied with the changes I’ve exhibited in these few months. At the start, I was borderline complacent with my life--I allowed myself to be acted on instead of taking action myself. Forgiving me for being cliché, I was sitting in the bleachers when I should have been on the field.
What I’ve learned this semester is that life is for living. If there are things I want in life, if there are aspects of my life that I want to change--things I want to make better or eliminate entirely--I have all the tools to do so. I can make my life what ever I want it to be. Success and happiness merely take serious planning and a commitment to consistent, purposeful actions and behaviors. Success and happiness are not merely things that occur randomly. They are the products of hard work, the thoughtful organization of one’s priorities and obstacles, the know-how to acquire the appropriate information and other tools, and a proper sense of self to ensure the devotion needed to attain one’s goals.
Before this semester, I was waiting for my life’s path to be revealed just in front of me. While my future is beginning to unravel before me, it’s the future that I am building through conscientious evaluations of myself, my life, and my life goals. My mentality has shifted from being that of person waiting for the next move to come his way to that of a person eager to make those moves materialize when he wants them to. I am confident in my abilities, and through the knowledge and awareness I’ve gained by enrolling in this course, I am building confidence in my ability to initiate success in my life.
As many of you may remember, I experienced an exciting first this semester. I completed my very first assignment as a journalist working for a local neighborhood monthly newspaper. If anyone had told me I would be working for a small newspaper by the end of the year, I would’ve told them they were nuts. Hopefully, working for La Voz del Paseo Boricua will be an excellent learning experience for me and provide me with the skills I will need in furthering my career as a writer and journalist. I’m still much more inconsistent with my behavior than I would like to be; I need to practice being driven, motivated, organized, and active.
Unfortunately, I cannot offer my advice for improving the course or whatnot. My semester started a month late, and once I actually did attend my first class session, I had problems regularly attending and fulfilling certain requirements, such as homework and other projects. I wish I had taken advantage of this course more, as I think it’s the type of course that offers more benefits when committed to entirely. In the end, it’s my loss, and I have to count whichever benefits I have managed to snatch this semester.
However, where ever I attended and participated in this course, I fully enjoyed it. I’ve told friends and classmates about my experiences in this class, describing Leadership for Change as “pure fun” and “eye-opening.” There’s an informal, friendly, and personal feel to the class. People open up. We share ideas, fears, and goals. We celebrate our success together and empathize with each other’s failures and setbacks. The class’s whole environment fosters motivation and drive. A student is surrounded by other people taking charge of their life’s direction, and this makes one want to do the same. It’s an exciting feeling being a part of this class and its ambitions.
I’ve some interesting and unexpected role model experiences in the past couple weeks. I had the standard interview with the editor La Voz, Marisol, asking her: what motivated her initially and continues to motivate her?; what feelings or satisfaction does she experience through her work in journalism?; how has she managed setbacks?; and what advice does she have for me concerning my immediate future and my lifelong goals? It was interesting talking to her, because since she’s only a year or two older than I, I could easily relate with what she was telling me. Where talking to my other role models involved talking to older people who were further along in their careers, Marisol was only a few (albeit major) steps ahead of me. As a graduate student in Northwestern’s School for Journalism and an editor for a minor yet influential newspaper, she’s doing something I seriously hope to be doing myself in the near future.
I had hard times sessions with two other people who then reveal themselves to be role models themselves. Although Jodene is a museum administration for a small, local cultural institute, I found out that she, too, is a journalism grad student at Northwestern. I didn’t ask her any standard questions, since she was simply there to listen to my stress over certain situations in my life and offer her support in seeing me get through it all. It was exciting to learn of our shared dream of working for the Chicago Tribune in the future, and I will assuredly rely on her wisdom and experience as I start my journey to my goals in the upcoming months.
My final role model experience was with my history professor, Jose Lopez. Since one of my life goals is to become a professor of history myself, I really like setting aside time each week to have a discussion with him in his office. I’ve learned that he is quite active in the Puerto Rican community and the Humboldt Park area. His activism and community involvement and influence is something I aspire to possess. He told me that I had all the tools to succeed but just need to learn to prioritize my life and focus on achieve short-term and long-term goals.
As always, if anything, the role model experiences were insightful and reassuring.
I can’t wait to finish this semester up. I wouldn’t consider my performance these past few months as one of my finest, so I’m eager to limp out of this semester, count my loses, regroup, and finish my undergrad studies strong next semester. I’m also VERY ready to start the work of building a career in journalism and community activism and organizing.
