Friday, May 6, 2011

What a Year

Our Summit Experience has been a good, interesting opportunity. I've learned a few things that will benefit me as I continue my time at Drury. One is that you have to plan early to get anything done on time if you have to go through the University to do something. Another is you have to manage your time very well. Also, spreading news by word of mouth is the best way to advertise what you are doing. The greatest thing I learned from living in Summit was how to control my additude. It may sound funny, but, as my mother would tell you, I've always had an additude problem and living with two or three other girls with their own additudes made me much more aware of mine. I feel like we raised awareness of C.A.R.E. on Drury campus, but not as much as we would have liked. We helped C.A.R.E. raise awareness for themselves in the rest of the community, though. We made a connection between C.A.R.E. and Drury that will hopefully continue on. There is already a Summit group next year working with C.A.R.E., and hopefully C.A.R.E. will become an organization that people choose for Summit every year. If I had not lived in Summit my experience at Drury probably would have been much different. I probably would have lived in college park. Not that college park is bad, Summit is just a luxury. I lived in Sunderland and Summit so now I don't want to "down grade" to the other campus housing. If I had had to live in college park this year I would not mind so bad (hopefully). Summit is just so separated from the rest of housing. We only see people who live in Summit or who live further down the street. Nobody else ventures this way. I like that. Looking back over the past year, I definitely would have some things differently. I would have planned and started advertising our events much further ahead of time for sure. I also would have liked to have gotten more into the Springfield community as a whole, instead of mainly the Drury community.

To future Summit groups, listen up! Choose your groups well! Make sure every group member puts everything on the table before you even start this process. Not only are you working on a year-long project with this group, you're also living together, which is much harder than it sounds. We lost one of our group members because she decided she really didn't like us that much and never said anything about it. She was one of our best friends and we never saw it coming. Believe me, you don't want to go through that. Personally, I think four people groups are much easier to handle than eight people groups. You have to be able to talk about your project often and it's hard to get eight people with different schedules together at once. Make sure you choose an organization that you can be committed to. Summit can be a pain in the rear when you have a full schedule, you're involved in other organizations, you're trying to get all your volunteer hours in and any events you have planned. If you're really committed to your organization it reminds you that you're not just wasting your time.

It has been a great experience. Good luck to next year's groups. Especially C.A.R.E., I hope you do great things.

Sarah Nemeth and Anna Yendes were great partners. They both brought something different to the mix.

Thank you Andrew Wiemer, for the experience, the help, everything.

~Josie Yost

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