A. Evaluate a significant experience or achievement that has special meaning to you.
I was sitting at the lunch table eating lunch with my best friend when our teacher approached us with a new and interesting project. She had told us that we had been selected to participate in a new program to promote peace in our school; it was called "The peer mediators." We were both very startled at first, given we were not the most outspoken or the people loving kind. I for one was very afraid of even thinking of talking to strangers and was opting for refusing her invitation. After a couple of chats with my teacher she managed to convince me and my friend to give it a shot with the promise we could leave at any time we felt uncomfortable.
The training consisted on conferences about relationships, conflicts and psychology. I was very intrigued in the content of the conferences and their diplomatic approach, but the real learning experience began when the training came to an end and my partner and I had to actually start on the practice with real people on real conflicts. I discovered people's attitudes are the hardest to understand and analyze specially when trying to find a solution were feelings and interests are involved. In our first cases we were not successful at all, many students even decided to leave us for our lack of involvement and overwhelming shyness. Just when I was about to give up a girl came to me seeking peer mediation, I honestly told her I was not very good and that she could find someone else. With her insistence I decided to actually listen. After hearing her out for a while this upset looking girl transformed right before my eyes into an almost real human being which I actually enjoyed talking to, she was real and to the point and I felt the greatest desire to help her. After a couple of talks we almost even became friends. I discovered that for the job it wasn't required for you to be a physiologist but just a good and active listener, something like a friend. It was with this approach that this program awarded me with a recognition diploma in the end.
This experience was of significant importance to me for it opened up my interest in conflicts, their resolutions and people. Most of all it helped me to overcome my shyness and made me discover what would later become the major I want to pursue in college. The program might have been intended to impact others lives, but I guess the most impacted was me.
I was sitting at the lunch table eating lunch with my best friend when our teacher approached us with a new and interesting project. She had told us that we had been selected to participate in a new program to promote peace in our school; it was called "The peer mediators." We were both very startled at first, given we were not the most outspoken or the people loving kind. I for one was very afraid of even thinking of talking to strangers and was opting for refusing her invitation. After a couple of chats with my teacher she managed to convince me and my friend to give it a shot with the promise we could leave at any time we felt uncomfortable.
The training consisted on conferences about relationships, conflicts and psychology. I was very intrigued in the content of the conferences and their diplomatic approach, but the real learning experience began when the training came to an end and my partner and I had to actually start on the practice with real people on real conflicts. I discovered people's attitudes are the hardest to understand and analyze specially when trying to find a solution were feelings and interests are involved. In our first cases we were not successful at all, many students even decided to leave us for our lack of involvement and overwhelming shyness. Just when I was about to give up a girl came to me seeking peer mediation, I honestly told her I was not very good and that she could find someone else. With her insistence I decided to actually listen. After hearing her out for a while this upset looking girl transformed right before my eyes into an almost real human being which I actually enjoyed talking to, she was real and to the point and I felt the greatest desire to help her. After a couple of talks we almost even became friends. I discovered that for the job it wasn't required for you to be a physiologist but just a good and active listener, something like a friend. It was with this approach that this program awarded me with a recognition diploma in the end.
This experience was of significant importance to me for it opened up my interest in conflicts, their resolutions and people. Most of all it helped me to overcome my shyness and made me discover what would later become the major I want to pursue in college. The program might have been intended to impact others lives, but I guess the most impacted was me.
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