Making This Year Count

I’m days away from stepping back into Temple’s campus life. Don’t get me wrong, I look forward to the new semester ahead of me and getting back into the groove of things. In terms of leveling up this year, I plan on taking the initiative this school year and take advantage of the opportunities with my new internship and executive board position. I want to work towards building up both my professional and personal life.

I’m excited to see what my future holds for me. I acknowledge how much work I’ll need to put in to achieve these goals.

Time and energy are two valuable resources I don’t want to waste this year.

Not only do I want to use those sources for schoolwork.  I also look toward my new position on the executive board for Temple University ‘s QPoC (Queer People of Color) and my internship at College Magazine.

I’m grateful to be a part of two amazing teams. I know great work will be coming out of these two groups. I’m excited to be a part of QPoC because this is a chance for me to become involved in a community. This also gives me a chance to improve my leadership and communication skills. Last year I couldn’t fully commit to an organization and it bummed me out since I really wanted to be an active member. Because of this, I made sure to make it a goal of mine to make time to join a campus organization. 

I was fortunate enough to find out about QPoC and I took a chance on applying to the executive board and I was so happy to become a member.

Acting as the Community Service Liaison, I get to work as the one who bridges both the Temple and Philadelphia Queer communities together and form connections with local Philly organizations including Colours, the  Mazzoni Center and Galaei. Having the chance to work with other LGBTQ organizations both on campus and around the city struck amazement to me. As someone who wants to be involved in activism, I see this as a great window of opportunity. I look forward to meeting my fellow board members and start building up and expanding this organization.

As for my internship, I want to use this position to gain more writing experience. I need to learn the ropes of writing for a magazine and step outside of my writing comfort zone. This is my very first internship.I’ll be honest though, I didn’t think I would get one so early into my college career. But hey, I’m not complaining. So far, I’ve been enjoying writing for the magazine. I haven’t been here for long, but I look to what the future holds for me here. I hope to get as much experience from this internship. 

In terms of leveling up my personal life, going out more would serve me well.

I need to remove myself from school and go explore the city of Philadelphia. Last year I didn’t have the chance to visit different areas of the city as much as would like to. There’s no rush, but if I do ever have free time, I want to take the chance to leave campus and go visit new areas. 

 I’m also really into site seeing and taking in the environment.  I absolutely want to go see other neighborhoods in the city. Visiting all the little shops around South Street including Philly AIDS Thrift, Repo Records and Wooden Shoe Books. I love going to different landmarks in the city, a personal favorite is Eastern State Penitentiary. The neighborhoods I did get to go visit, I still feel as though I haven’t had the chance to really take in what each one had to offer. I want to make the effort to go finally visit the neighborhoods I haven’t had the chance to see.

I just want to level up my travel experience in general.

I would love to go to other places outside of the city of Philadelphia. Possibly other cities and colleges in Pennsylvania since I’m not from here originally. Maybe I’ll give Pittsburgh or Penn State a visit,  either way, I’m sure I can make a fun trip out of it.   

Overall, I want this year to be focused on my new roles as an executive board member and as an intern. I want to have positive experiences to come from these two endeavors as I see them as great learning opportunities. I do want to make sure that I have fun outside of work and school activities too. That’s something I need to remind myself to do from time to time.