Using Interpersonal skills versus advice giving

I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine’s Day and got to eat some delicious chocolate and other candy! During this week’s class period Lauren and McKaila presented over chapter 4, “Interpersonal Communication Skills”. I thought Lauren and McKailas’ presentation ran very smoothly and was very helpful in realizing that I should think about the different options a student has before giving them my assistance or advice on something that is troubling them. I know that I am usually an advice giving individual because that is how I feel I can be a better leader for other individuals. For peer mentoring though I must be able to distinguish the difference between when advice giving is more appropriate or when interpersonal communication is the better way to go about a situation. Being able to make this distinction will definitely make me a better peer mentor for my future mentees.

My next thought about Lauren and McKailas’ presentation was the first small, but funny video clip we watched at the very beginning of their presentation. This video showed both advice giving and interpersonal skills being used incorrectly. The advice that was given was not particularly good advice because he basically told his friend to go marry this girl they both know. He also did not use great interpersonal skills by not listening to his friend’s story very intently or caring what his friend’s decisions for the given situation was. I can probably speak for most people by saying that I don’t like to talk just to hear my own voice so if I had a friend who was doing this to me I probably wouldn’t go to them for advice or help with a situation.

Chelsee’s presentation at the end of class helped me to get a better idea of what different terms are used to describe interpersonal skills and advice giving. I never realized that giving advice was simpler and more of a process of steps when compared to using interpersonal skills. I hope that I can get better at both of these skills and be better at realizing when to use one skill over the other during this and next semester!

Josh's Presentation: Week 3

During this week we went over Chapter 3, Enhancing Cultural Proficiencies, in the “Students Helping Students” book. In this chapter there were many different definitions of different words that are commonly misused or misinterpreted. This chapter also talked about cultural differences and how we all come from different backgrounds and must realize this. I personally came from a small school which had little to no cultural diversity and after moving to Iowa State University I had to realize that at Iowa State University there is a much greater amount of cultural diversity.

The different activities Josh had us complete were very interesting to me and kept the audience involved during his presentation. The first activity we were involved in was to pick out the top ten of our best values from a list of at least one hundred different words. My first ten words were ambition, commitment, determination, family orientedness, hard work, leadership, reliability, results-oriented, success, and thoughtfulness. Picking out these ten words was fairly simple for me. Next we were required to narrow this list down to five words which was simple for me. My five chosen words were ambition, commitment, family orientedness, hard work and leadership. Finally we had to narrow our values down to three values and mine were family orientedness, hard work and leadership. This was not as simple as the two previous cuts but I felt as if these three words described my values the best.

For Josh’s next activity we were supposed to connect all of the dots on this piece of paper with four straight lines without lifting your pencil or retracing any lines. I was not able to complete this activity just like most of my fellow peer mentors. This activity was used to make us realize that we may have to think outside of the box for some different situations.

Overall I thought Josh gave a great presentation and used many different styles of teaching during his presentation. I hope that my partner and I will be able to have a great presentation like Josh did!

Diversity Event: Freedom Riders: Documentary and Discussion

I’m just getting this post up because I didn’t have time to work on it while I watched that very intense, amazing and crazy Iowa State men’s basketball game last night! Anyways, I attended the diversity event “Freedom Riders: Documentary and Discussion” last night in the South Ballroom of the Memorial Union. The event lasted a total of about an hour and a half and contained a great video to start the lecture and also contained a good discussion at the end of the lecture. I did not catch the lecturer’s name because I came in a little bit late but he was a historian who was going to have a discussion about the “Freedom Riders” and their journey through the south to test the United States civil rights policies. The ride lasted several weeks and was meant to be a nonviolent experience for these “Freedom Riders”, however this is not how their ride turned out. When the first group reached Alabama they were approached and beaten by a group of white men. After that incident a second group attempted to continue this trip through the south to New Orleans. This trip forced the federal government to enforce its regulations with far greater regulation after further violence was seen. The presenter explained the rest of the video and continued on to a discussion of the video.
I thought this event was pretty repetitive because I had previously learned this information during my high school history course. However, the discussion following the video about the “Freedom Riders” was very helpful to understand different people’s views of how these events have impacted the United States history. We also discussed how these events did not happen that long ago and how they are not as much of a problem in the United States anymore.
A question that I still have is how much of a problem is still seen with people in the United States? I still think that this issue has not been entirely taken out of some peoples past so I would like to know how prevalent this issue still is in the United States.

ISLE and Mid-Year Leadership and peer mentoring sessions

On Friday I was only able to make it to one session because I had class during the other sessions but the one session that I made it too was from ten to ten-fifty. I attended this event where the speaker was Roger Bentley, an engineering career services program coordinator. During his presentation he talked about how to properly write your peer mentoring experience on your resume. To do this properly he told us to use words that explained and described ourselves with certain unique sets of words that make us stand out against other qualifying candidates. Roger said to also make sure to expand on the experience and make sure to include more than just a single line about our entire mentoring experience. He also expressed the importance of explaining your active parts or experiences instead of your past awards and honors. They are still important but should be a minimal part of your resume because they do not explain you very well but explain your past.
On Saturday I made it to sessions two and three. For session two I went to the event in the cardinal room hosted by Kyle Holtman relating to team building. During this event I learned about a couple of different activities that I can do to help build a stronger relationship with my mentees. I can also use these different activities to help me to get to know them better without making it super awkward!
I attended the third session, again in the cardinal room, by Mary Horton who is currently a senior in biology and the former president of the sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta. During Mary’s presentation she discussed the steps of “challenging the process” which include three steps: evaluation, innovation and action. Through these steps I learned that for a new idea to be successful you should make sure to evaluate the process first, make sure it can set into place and then put it into action.


I really thought that these different leadership events helped me to obtain more ideas for building better relationships with my mentees. These events also allowed me to listen to former peer mentors and leader’s ideas and experiences to help me figure out what I can do to make my peer mentoring experience better!

My new MBTI results!

Through the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator program my personality type was registered as being ESFJ, which is very interesting to me. When I first took this personality type indicator program during my freshman year I was registered as an ISFJ. I know that during my freshman year I was very quiet and introverted as the program states. As I met new people here at ISU and gained more leadership skills through the many different activities I was involved in I opened up more to people which makes me realize that I have become more extraverted but not as much as the personality test indicated. That is the only part of this test that I believe to be somewhat incorrect.

Now, for the sensing personality type, I rely greatly on my senses by thinking very realistically, using practical approaches, being a results-oriented individual and continuing great traditions. For my feeling personality, I am a person who heavily relies on other peoples input to situations; I always hope to achieve harmony and also try to takes everyone’s feelings into great consideration on most activities or situation. Finally, for my judging personality, I am a very early starter for many projects and activity’s. This is because I usually stress out when cramming is needed or specific answers are needed without getting allowable time to work on or think about the current situation. I usually like to have extra time to think about the different affects one decision versus another can have on the final project or product of my decision so without allowable time I feel I may make a poor decision that will negatively affect the final project.

I believe that I will become more extraverted and talkative with our group of Hixson peer mentors as we progress further through the semester and into next semester. As of right now I know several of our peer mentors pretty well but I really hope to get to know the rest of you better!