My experience consisted of many small group leadership activities and large group discussions in lecture halls. Also, I had the chance to experience the college life while staying in dorms and touring the Ohio University campus.
When I first got there on Thursday,I had to go through registration and dorm orientation. Once every student was registered, we started with a group activity to get to know everyone and get comfortable in this environment. Before lunch, we went to a lecture hall and had a welcome meeting and listened to a speaker named “Bow-tie Tod” who was very enthusiastic and fun to listen to. After, we headed to lunch and ate at a cafeteria on campus. The food was really good and I was excited to come back for dinner. When everyone was done eating, we headed back to the lecture hall and had one more group discussion before splitting into our breakout groups. The group I was in was called the monkeys and we had fun leaders who led discussions and activities. After many activities and discussions, we got to learn while our roommates were and headed back to our dorms for free time and snacks before we had to go to bed. I was already starting to enjoy this camp and was very excited about the rest of the conference.
On the second day, we met for breakfast bright and early and then met with our breakout groups. We learned about the tillars of leadership did many activists around it that day. Once we ate lunch, we met back with our groups and had to write a skit that revolves around the issue of Polio and how we can make a difference. We practiced for an hour to perfect our skit and it turned out to be really good and persuasive. We then moved on to outdoor activities and dinner following that. At this point, I was starting to become friends with many new people from all over Ohio. We had a dance party and pizza planned for the night and I was excited to have time to spend with these new friends. After a long night of fun, we had a little free time and then went to bed to get ready for our last day.
On our last day, we got to sleep in for an hour which was really nice considering how late we stayed up the night before. We had breakfasts and met with our breakout groups once last time and did final activities. We made mission statements and wrote our selves letters that we would receive around graduation. I wrote mine hoping I’d be accepted into the college of my choice and I’d have a successful senior year of soccer. Once we had lunch and got back to the lecture hall for our closing ceremony, there was a speaker who came and joined us for our last activity. This speaker was named Alex Sheen and he is the CEO of a a social movement called “because I said I would.” He was motivated by the words of his father to complete every promise he makes. His story and accomplishments truly moved me and I really enjoyed listening to him. I’d love to see him speak again soon. Once we got our certificates and recognitions, I said bye to my new friends and started to head home back to Hilliard. This experience was very educational but also very fun and amusing all together. I would love to reunite with the people I met and the leaders I got close to. I learned a lot from this experience and it taught me to become a better leader and person.