As my leadership course comes to an end, I can reflect that I have gained greater leadership skills because of my knowledge now compared to what I believe when I started this course. Throughout this course I was able to interact with different students in our group projects that we did. A leader to me needs to be able to have communication skills among the people around them. One of the group projects was based on the Television. This meant I would have to speak among other students in my group and create a project to present to the whole class. I usually am a very shy person and keep my ideas to myself but one of the main concepts of being a leader is speaking up for what you believe in, while coming out of your comfort zone. The group project was divided into sections that everyone had a say of what they believed the impact of the invention of the Television was among society. Often we had many ideas and beliefs but we all needed to come into agreements so that we could have a smooth project. A leader needs to be capable of hearing everyone around them even if sometimes there may be disagreements.

This was my first college presentation and I was extremely nervous but I remembered that for me to grow among my leadership skills I needed to take risks. If I am able to overcome this now later it would not affect me as much. I knew that I would have to present my slide among the class and there were many concepts that I needed to portray so that I could get my point across. A leader needs to speak strong and loud, not to the point you are screaming, but in a way your audience can be focused into what you are saying. I worked on trying to keep my tone in a consistent way when I presented,  so that my audience was able to see that the topic I was presenting about, I knew what I was saying rather than speaking low and not knowing what I was presenting about.

 I connected this leadership skill to when I presented about “television and politics during Kennedy vs Nixon debate. When Kennedy spoke he was portrayed as “beautifully bronzed” while Nixon was seen as “death”. This was because Nixon was sweating during this debate and Kennedy was seen as confident in what he was saying. We see that many saw Kennedy as a leader because he was not hesitate to say what he needed to say, he spoke strong, and portrayed confidence in this debate. While I connect this to my class presentation I took this skill into consideration because if I portrayed myself as nervous the class would become distracted and not focus on what I was saying. It is okay to be nervous it is human but working on this skill to show you are different and can be put in situations to speak among other shows why you differ in the crowd to be a leader.

This course was very different because often we think that since we are young we can not be seen as leaders but it could be in a simple situation as in a group project you see how many leadership skills you have. I work to continue growing these skills to help me not only in college but among my peers, and later on even in a working environment.