Undergraduate / DISCOVERING NEW PATHS. CURIOSITY MAKES ME A GREAT PARTICIPANT [3]

Why would you be a great participant in the Global UGRAD Program?

Even now, while I am typing those words, I cannot believe that I am writing an essay to apply for a scholarship. This is the thing; I have never done this before because I thought I definitely would fail. I am just a normal student, no excellent scholastic achievements, no IELTS or TOEFL certificates, so what makes me a great participant?

CURIOSITY!

I am curious about everything. While at university, I found that I was very interested in marketing. I asked myself what the customers think, how big companies, like Coca-Cola, could make advertising campaigns that are so impressive and creative. Such things motivated me to study more about marketing, especially the media. From that, I started as a business student, without basic knowledge of media, to become the head of media department of my faculty. I developed our fan page on Facebook. Because of this, the number of likes increased from about 300 to almost 4000. This page is visited by not only students of our department, but by many people on and off campus. I also worked in media teams for some programs from big companies, such as Nestles Management and Sales Trainee Program 2017. Currently, I work as an intern for social media team of 7 Bridges Brewing company, which is famous in the expatriate community in Vietnam. Albert Einstein said: "Success comes from curiosity, concentration, perseverance, and self-criticism", and I think I am a good example of that quote. However, I do not want to see no further than the end of my nose. I want to study and improve myself. That is one reason why I am applying to UGRAD. In addition, I am curious about the USA - a diverse country, racially and ethnically. I am curious how Vietnamese people live there. I am curious and I want to see America with my own eyes. I think that the tons of questions about America in my head will have the answers if I am a participant.

I am curious about myself. I am now 20 years old. There are still a lot of things that I have not discovered me. But I used to be so shy due to the thoughts of failure and people laughing. They prevented me from expressing myself. Then one day, I watched a video about Jack Ma. He applied for Harvard University and was rejected ten times, although he knew he would be. It made me realize that it is better to fail in something than to do nothing and do not know if I can succeed. Now, I am very self-motivated and not afraid of failure. I take my chances and assume the risks. I attend many activities and explore what I can do. Then I found I am good at photography. I have a gallery on Instagram and people really like it. I believe that UGRAD will be a good chance to help me know more about myself.

In conclusion, Walt Disney had a quote: "We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths."

With curiosity, I succeed in career and in exploring myself.
With curiosity, I will be a great participant in Global UGRAD.

Undergraduate / I inspire members to do more, learn more, dream more, also become more, in this, I am a leader. [3]

Please give me your comments and feedback! Thank you very much!!

John Quincy Adams said, "If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." Everyone's approach to leadership is different. How would you describe your personal leadership style? What values do you consider the most important when leading others? How do you inspire and influence others to get behind your vision?

respect is the most important value of a leader

John Quincy Adams once said, "If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." I have seen this quote on an article ages ago and it had a big effect on me.

Currently, I am the head of the media department of my faculty. My work is pretty much related to art and creativeness, and we always focus on looking for new ideas. Therefore, in my leadership style, members of my team are encouraged to make decisions, otherwise known as the democratic leadership style. From my point of view, I think that only leaders making decisions narrows down the possibility of problem realization of the whole team. In fact, many incredible ideas have come from members, ideas which I did not think about myself! This helped a lot in decision optimization. In addition, when I encourage my members to make decisions, they feel as if they are part of the project. They do what they want, they do what they like and they do more fill with inspiration. However, in case we need to make a decision in a short period, I will make it alone.

I always try to build and keep my team as a small family in which we are all siblings. I believe that the closer we get, the easier we work together. This is why I try to create occasions for members to meet outside of meetings. For instance, we eat out together, we even bought team shoes! I always strive to create a more exciting atmosphere at every meeting. When members are close, they feel more comfortable to share their ideas. This is key to my leadership style. Members feel free to ask and question, and from this, they learn more from each other. Also as we grow closer, we share personal things more easily. We can share what we expect from the other members; we look forward to how the team will grow together so we can dream about the future of our team. This is how I inspire them to get behind my vision, or I would like to say, our vision.

In my opinion, whatever one's leadership style is, the most important value when leading others is respect. On the member's side, having respect from the leader makes them feel that they are important. They would be willing to dedicate more to the organization. On the leader's side, being respected by subordinates, their speech will carry more weight and be more influential. This helps the leader control the team more easily. Therefore, to gain respect from members, a leader should be a person who sincerely listens to and makes members feel valued. For example, sometimes I asked my members how their work is progressing. At one point, a girl told me that she wanted to learn about design. Following that, I tried to help her and even assigned her the task of designing a picture for a small post on our fan page on Facebook, even though she never attempted this before. I demonstrated I believe in her and that made her feel valuable. I in tern, gain her respect, and further, I helped her realize one of her goals.

According to Mr. Adams, my actions inspire members to do more, learn more, dream more, also become more, in this, I am a leader.