Personal Narrative: My Upward Bound Program

During my freshman year I was a really isolated student very unwilling to volunteer willingly for anything, much less take up a leadership position. Then one day I went to my counselor to see what I could do that could help me for my future, she directed me to the school’s Upward Bound program, and after joining this program my eyes have been opened dramatically. When I joined I had no idea how much work went into applying and getting accepted to university, I did not know what a transcript was, a resume, GPA, or even community service hours. However, the thing that really impacted me was the leadership aspect, I had never been a leader or even thought about leading anything, I was usually just like the follower that obeyed instructions. So when the time came I decided I was going to run for class president, and that was a

I was so excited because I was able to accomplish this with such great people. After that I started leading a couple more activities like at church and the community center, then in my junior year my Upward Bound advisor told me she would be sending me to Washington D.C. to attend the National Student Leadership Congress due to my successful past projects. When I got to D.C. I was so excited to meet different people and to learn more about being a leader. I attended a session with the great Larry Bell where he explained to us that in order to be a great leader it is important to be able to accept people for who they are and not to be afraid of learning new things, I took this to heart and took it back home. My senior year I decided that as my last sort of hurrah at the school I would do something that sort of started everything for me, Mirror Messages, and this time was even bigger than the last time. Six hundred and thirty five sticky notes cover the school end to end all to spread