My name is Grace Euler, and I am a senior majoring in Human Health Sciences with a minor in Leadership Studies. I have been on the pre-occupational therapy track at K-state since my freshman year and have recently been accepted into my dream Master of Occupational Therapy program on the East Coast.
I want to take a moment to reflect on how leadership studies has helped me in my post-graduate endeavors. The acceptance process to occupational therapy school is strenuous and it requires more than a good GPA to get in. While preparing to interview for schools, I realized that the acceptance process required a holistic understanding of who I am and the ability to vocalize this. Coming into college, I knew I was outgoing, faith-oriented, and that I wanted to help others in my future career. However, it was not until I began my leadership classes that I was able to confidently tell interviewers how I exercised leadership in my daily life and how I planned to continue this in my future career as an occupational therapist.
In almost any graduate school interview, you can expect the looming question, “What are your strengths?” Interviewers hear hundreds of answers to this question, and I knew I wanted my response to this question to set me apart. Thankfully in my time in LEAD 212: Introduction to leadership concepts, I learned my Top Five CliftonStrengths and found out how each of these strengths contributed to my comprehensive self. I was prepared with an insightful answer of how my strengths of communication, positivity, and inclusion would benefit my future patients because of the thorough exploration we did in class revolving our personal strength results.
As a future occupational therapist, employers will want to know how I view individuals and respond to their differences. In such a people-based occupation, it is important to be ready to work with people who hold different identities than me and this requires becoming more knowledgeable about culture and context. Gratefully, in my LEAD 350: Culture and context class, I have been able to learn about a variety of different identities and how each person is a collection of these unique identities. In my interview, I was able to speak about how I plan to implement empathy into my future career and how I recognize the value of meeting a patient where they are at. In LEAD 350, I realized that taking a moment to learn about a person’s identities, however uncomfortable, helps me to understand them and serve them best.
My future was shaped by my time in the Staley School of Leadership, allowing me to reflect deeply about who I am and how I want to practice leadership in my future career and personal life. By choosing to pursue a leadership minor, my future patients will receive higher quality patient care, my future kids will have a more understanding mother, and my future neighbors will have a friend in me.
