The Presidential Leadership Academy has given me a wealth of opportunities and experiences that I know will be helpful for the rest of my life, both personal and professional. A great quote that comes to mind as I reflect on the academy and how I can demonstrate growth from the experience is, “Any experience, whether good or bad, will be a useless waste of time without future application of the lesson it taught.” With that in mind, I look towards applying the skills I have improved within the academy throughout the rest of my life.
The PLA has given me a wealth of opportunities to continue developing myself and has been quintessential in sharpening my different skills of critical thinking, writing and speaking presentation. Now in the academy, I have built these different skills in understanding how to formulate my own thoughts and opinions around an issue and apply my skills to effectively convey the critical ideas to a group. The classes were beneficial from both my sophomore year and currently with the capstone course. As I look towards graduating from the academy, I hope to be able to exhibit these new skills within my fulltime actuarial work at AIG, in the New York City community, and as I continue to mentor throughout my career.
At AIG, the skills I have learned from the PLA will remain of constant importance. I know that the challenges as an actuary, working to price insurances efficiently and accurately, and working on teams to select areas of growth and improvement for AIG as a company will utilize these capabilities frequently. The skills I have learned through the academy will be helpful in creatively thinking and taking into consideration others opinions to make those decisions in grayer areas. As my roles evolve through the years, and I move higher into management, these communication and critical thinking skills will always be necessary. Also, since I will be engaged in recruitment efforts for AIG, these same abilities can add value to the team as another point of contact with additional perspective.
Within the community, the critical thinking skills we learned through being a part of PLA are going to continue to be important. Simply as I look to improve the surrounding community I will be a part of, I can apply the skills to what improvements make sense, what policies could be created and how to be resourceful in being an agent of change for the New York City community. I am very interested in a type of pro-bono consulting, and believe that these skills will carry me far.
Lastly, I look towards staying involved in the Smeal community here and being an alumnus helping to mentor others. The leadership and critical thinking I have gained from being a part of academy will help me in mentoring others and guiding them to their own future. I will be able to apply some of the different things that I have learned from the trips to benefit the use of others, for creatively taking control of learning opportunities. Additionally, from the academy I have gained a much broader network of friends and can connect them for whatever may be helpful in the future. I am excited to exhibit these skills in mentoring others whether they are students here at Penn State, other alumni, or even people that I come into contact with.
I have been very blessed and fortunate to be accepted in the Presidential Leadership Academy. Between the work with the policy paper; the trips that we learned so much from; and the courses with President Rodney Erickson and Dean Brady; I am incredibly fortunate to have gained so much from it. I only hope to expand on this knowledge for the last two months of the academy and utilize it as I continue on in my career and personal endeavors.
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