Leader in the Field

In my interview with a leader in my field I interviewed Laurie Kuntz. She is a Child psychiatrist at the Children's Recovery center in Norman Oklahoma. The inpatient center focuses on youths from the ages of 5 to 18 with mental disorders, substance abuse issues, and with suicidal or homicidal crisis cases.   When the phone interview started I asked Laurie what the most difficult part of her job was and she responded: " Seeing some of the children having to face such traumatizing situations is absolutely heart-breaking. You can only hope that they will be able to live normal lives after the things that they have seen." I then asked what the most rewarding part of her job was and she stated that "seeing a youth face so much adversity and then watching them slowly overcome it."  Next I asked her about her leadership roles within the center and she responded that "it is my job to set an example for the other staff members as well as the patients. Many of them look to me in tense situations for guidance or support." I then asked her to give me her definition of leadership and she defined it as: "Any way of helping or influencing other people." She also added that without former leaders in her life she would not be where she is today. Additional reading can be found  at http://newsok.com/adolescent-center-gets-new-name-childrens-recovery-center/article/3329775

Future @ OU

At this point in my life, my future at OU seems so far away, however everyone keeps telling me that these years go by faster than any other. If I could do anything at OU I would most definitely just try to make life long friends and to make my parents proud. Pretty simple. My senior tear I want to be proud of my grades, have 1-2 really close best friends, and know that I will have a job when I graduate. I want to build up my resume over the next years and when I graduate I wan to feel like I was successful and be proud of myself.

Attitude

In the dictionary, attitude is defined as: a feeling or emotion toward a fact or state. To me, however, attitude is so much more. Attitude is perhaps one of the biggest aspects of influence. In a group project attitude plays a large role in the outcome of the project. If the participants in a group have a negative attitude then the outcome of the project is going to reflect that. If the participants have a positive attitude the project will be finished more efficiently and the outcome will be much better. One person who has influenced me because of their attitude is my friend Lorren. Even in the face of adversity Lorren consistently has a positive and happy attitude. I always go to her when I need someone to talk to because I know that, because of her attitude, just being around her will make me feel better. Attitudes are one of our most important assets because they determine how other people respond to us. I think a smile says alot about our attitude and that is the most significant asset a person can have.

Problem vs. Challenge

The Problem vs challenge that we learned about today was the challenge of getting across the carpet. We met the lead team today and at OU they are leaders and helpers for the students. An experience of mine that started as a problem and turned into a challenge started about two weeks ago. I Did really poorly on a test and felt really discouraged when it came time to study or take any other tests. I then had to tell myself that that one bad test would not be what every test would be like. So for the next test i studied really hard andended up doing really well. I overcame my challenge.