As my first self designed honors experience, I decided to reflect further upon my work volunteering for the local community. As part of one of the college organizations I’m in, Association for Computing Machinery-Women’s Chapter (ACM-W), I go to Hughes STEM High school to help students learn how to code and create animations. I enjoyed this experience as I had taken time to mentor other students while I was in High School so this felt like a natural continuation of my experience. For the most part, I just helped Ms. Grasso, the instructor of the class, with whatever she needed. This varied from simply helping out in the class to attending after school meetings and making course material.

During the experience, I kept a log that I updated weekly of my reflections on my experience mentoring the students. I helped with Ms. Grasso’s class for about 4 hours a week from February to April with a few longer sessions for special events. When I started working with the students, I was timid and was worried about what the students would think of my manner of teaching opposed to their instructor. As the weeks went on, I slowly started being more assertive in my style even if it differed from Ms. Grasso’s.

The picture of me helping a high school student with this project at Revolution UC, a student run hackathon that happened this Spring.

The majority of my work with Ms. Grasso was spent helping in class and planning. Much of this work was done with students and I’m not supposed to take pictures of high school students as part of the requirements of working with the group. Nonetheless, my time spent working with the students gave me a significant amount of experience mentoring and managing the group. During Revolution UC,I worked to help organize the event. During the event, I was able to take my mentorship skills I gained during this experience and help students with their projects.

I found this photo fitting because it exemplifies me using skills I gained while working with the students. I enjoy helping local students and am grateful for being given the opportunity to integrate this with my honors experience. This experience of mentoring has helped me with group dynamics and work management. I believe that what I have gained from this reflection will be useful to me for the rest of my life.