Consider all the extracurricular activities (community involvement, paid and/or volunteer work experience, entrepreneurial ventures) that you have been involved in during the past four years. Select three activities that you feel demonstrate your leadership abilities best. Focus your description on elements that demonstrate: teamwork, initiative, achievement, commitment and breadth. Each description should focus on one activity only.
For the main activity description, use an essay format, NOT bullet points. Please limit your description for each activity to 500 words. We recommend you type up and edit your essays in a separate word processing program and then copy and paste into the description field when you are satisfied that it is complete
(70 words over) At a young age, my mother told my sister and I that we needed to always stay together like a pair of chopsticks. This was my earliest interpretation of teamwork. Since then, my understanding of teamwork has grown as I participate in many group projects and workshops. The NOW program has taught me the most significant lesson so far.
The NOW program stands for Newcomer Orientation Week (first mention, this sould be explained) and is a week-long orientation to student life in the Ontario school system; NOW is funded by both TDSB and Citizenship and Immigration Canada. This year, the program was held at eight different schools across Toronto and helped 250 students, including the 50 participants that I particularly led.
Having been selected was a peer leader, I participated in a weeklong peer leader training workshop, which was led by numerous experienced settlement workers in the Thorncliffe Neighbourhood Office. I was divided into a group with eight other elite peer leaders from different schools. Through various team-building activities from composing a characteristic group cheer, entering a banner competition to an egg-protection activity, we had the opportunity to learn about our differences and similarities and become close friends. From hearing distinctive ideas and voices, I not only grasped other's experiences with dissolving conflicts, but also fresh ideas to plan events for the newcomers. At the end of the workshop, my team was confident and ready to welcome the participants.
However, it did not go smoothly as we expected. Since we had a large crowd,it was necessary to speak with a microphone; however, many of the peer leaders were not comfortable with using the facility. Thus two other peer leaders and I were the primary speaker in front of the participants. In addition, I had previously worked with the settlement worker from my involvement in a school club; hence, she often would ask me to lead the group discussions and activities with the participants. As a result, many other peer leaders felt disappointed. I overheard the members who did not speak up as much complaining regarding this issue and decided to make a change. On the third day, I encouraged the rest of the peer leaders to get out of their comfort zone and handed over the microphone to them. Upon learning a peer leader's birthday was coming, I initiated a surprise birthday party for her with the rest of the group, which I believed would eliminate our doubts to each other. Moreover, I voluntarily nominated the more quiet peer leaders to be the hosts of the talent show that we organized on the last day even though I had wanted the position. Instead I took the responsibility to motivate more participants of the program to prepare their own shows and had close contact with each participant. At the end, I found that I made the right sacrifice; the two peer leaders were excellent comedians and amazed the crowd with their talents in telling jokes.
From this two-week of program with the seven other peer leaders, I learned that it is easy to establish a team but hard to maintain. To work with a team, you not only have to exert your full endeavour, but also make sure there is a fair distribution of work. Till today, I still keep in touch with the peer leaders and they are the chopstick
I am still working on the conclusion, but I wanted to know if the content I have right now demonstrates my leadership and teamwork ability. Thank you so much!!!!!! Please correct the grammar mistakes and other flaws. I am open to criticism
Dian, I would like to share my thoughts on your essay, I believe it's a very rough draft, I hope I would be
able to help you in polishing it.
- including the 50 participants that I particularlywhich I led.
- Having been selected wasas a peer leader,
- I participated in a weeklong peer leadership training workshop,
- I wasWe were divided into
- a group withgroups of eight other elite peer leaders from different schools.
- and beca me close friends.
This are my initial remarks on your essay, I hope it helped and I'll get back for the rest of the essay, for the initial remarks,
what I notice is the choice of words you have in the sentences, you have to refresh yourself on the language rules.
Anyhow, I will talk more about that in the next set of remarks.
