Discover the Leader Within

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you all had as good a weekend as I did! Wondering why mine was so great? Read on to find out!

A few weeks ago, I got a letter in the mail informing me that I had been nominated by my RA Maria to attend the annual Leadership Retreat. I immediately accepted and filled out my attached Myers Brigg Type Indicator Test that would later become a key component of the weekend. I then began the wait for the arrival of the retreat!

And finally the day came! On Friday, the retreat began at the Lennoxville Golf Club. We began with some simple ice breakers to start to get to know the other students on the retreat. Then we were given our MBTI Results from the survey we had filled out when we registered. My result was ESTJ, or Extroverted, Sensing, Thinking and Judging. The picture below describes what this means for me and for other people who fit this code.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the MBTI, essentially there are 4 different dichotomies and the test determines your preference for one of two options in each dichotomy. It then puts these 4 preferences together in a 4 letter code and assigns it to you based on your preferences. There are 16 different letter codes and each code describes how a person with that particular code behaves, thinks, processes information, deals with stress, interacts with others, etc. It was really interesting to read through my results, mainly because I found that my code described me perfectly.  After reading through our results, we started an MBTI activity, breaking into groups of extroverts vs introverts, sensing vs intuition, thinking vs feeling and judging vs perceiving to start to become more familiar with the meaning behind each preference. 

Later that night, we had our opening dinner with many special guests. These guests included past participants in the retreat, student leaders at BU, alumni and community members. I was seated at a table with Ms. Deb Langford, the director or Residence and Conference Services, Laura Harrison, a student leader at BU and a lady who was the former director of the Foreman Art Gallery on campus. 

After we ate, we had two guest speakers. The first was a student from BU discussing his dream to work for Cirque du Soleil. The second was a lady named TA Loeffler, a professor from Memorial University and a mountain climber. She is currently working on climbing the highest mountains on each continent and has only Everest left to conquer. She has climbed the mountain twice already but has yet to make it to the summit. Her talk was extremely inspirational - she challenged us to find out what our own personal Everest is and to start taking the necessary steps to conquer it. 

On Saturday morning, we boarded a bus that took us to the Orford Centre for the Arts. The centre was beautiful - it was situated right in the middle of some mountains, including Mt. Orford, the mountain I climbed last week. We kicked off the day with some more ice breakers and then did some team building activities outside. Then we did some more work the MBTI results; specifically, we engaged in group discussions about how we use our different strengths and preferences in everyday life. I found this really useful as I often struggle with understanding why different people don't act the same way as me so this really opened my eyes to the way different people think and behave. 

Orford Centre for the Arts!

Challenge: Get every team member through a different hole in the web!

Challenge: I had to relay info about a lego tower from the Looker to the Builder!

After dinner, we made vision collages. The theme of the collage was how you see yourself as a leader now and in the future. We were given magazines and had to look through them for pictures and words that fit this theme and then glue them to our collage. After completing them, we all hung them up around the room and were able to see everyone's work. Mine is now hanging in my room so I that I am reminded of my vision every single day!

Matt and I with our vision collages!

My personal vision collage!

A wall of vision!

We closed the evening by watching the movie ALIVE! This is a movie based on the real story of the members of a Uruguayan rugby team from 1972 who were involved in a plane crash in the Andes mountains. The survivors of the crash were stranded in the middle of the mountains and began a fight for survival that would last for 72 days. Of the 35 people who were on the plane, 16 of them survived. The story was incredibly moving but I cannot even begin to imagine being in a similar situation. We were all given a copy of the book of this story and I can't wait to read it!

On Sunday, we started the day with a discussion of the movie and it was neat to hear everyone's opinions on different aspects of the film. We then had a workshop of the Stages of Group Development which I found interesting because I had never heard of this model before. The event concluded with presentations from two BU students talking about ways to get involved in campus and the ways in which they have personally gotten involved. This really inspired me to get more involved so I am keeping my eyes open to more opportunities on campus! 

To conclude, I want to extend a huge thank you to Diane, Sue, Charlene, Scott, Jeff and Lara for coordinating such an amazing weekend! Also thank you to my fellow retreat participants for such an eye opening weekend and I hope that we will all remain friends for the duration of our time here at school! Finally, thank you to my RA Maria for nominating me and giving me this fantastic opportunity! 

So that's all from me for now! It's hard to believe that there are only 25 days left until I am back in Ancaster and time only seems to fly by faster and faster every day! Every day here is filled with amazing new experiences and I so thankful for everything that I am able to do here! See you all soon!

All my love, Erica

PS Today in Dewie's I sat down beside a boy and his dad who were here on a tour and it brought back memories of when I came here in March with my dad. This time, I was the experienced student getting to explain why BU is the best! I hope that I was able to give him a glimpse of how amazing BU is and I wish him luck in the application process!