Being a part of the Presidential Leadership Academy has several benefits and advantages, and there is only one real requirement for continued participation. The one main requirement for being a part of PLA is that in order to build our critical thinking abilities and continually develop our minds we must reflect on our lives often and write weekly blog posts. For most, this is not an over-burdening task given the opportunities provided to us. However for some students, remembering to blog and reflect weekly can seem like more of a chore than anything else. I cannot be one to preach on this issue as I have been in the second group often with missed or late blogs, but here has been my progression of blogging and how I feel about it now.
For me early on as a sophomore in PLA, having to write the weekly blogs was fairly easy. With the classes each week that had differing topics, it was not too difficult to write on something of interest. Additionally, it could simply be grouped with other homework for your classes and completed each week. The idea of blogging became harder coming into my junior year simply because there was no class as a constant reminder. During this year, the intent from Melissa and Dean Brady I believe was that we would blog with shifting focuses each week on class, organizational involvement and general leadership. However, at the time, it only felt like a restraint on my blogging options to fit into this particular mold each week. Also, in some instances I felt at a loss when blogging for classes because I do have a very technical major and my classes did not seem to fit into the flow of blogging. Now as a senior within PLA, there is the PLA capstone class but there is also no blogging direction with the intent that we are free to blog as we please.
Throughout the years, my blogging has gone in ebbs and flows for how relevant I felt it was to me. At times, it seemed like a larger chore simply because feedback was rare on them and they were just sent into this virtual abyss on sites.psu.edu to keep you in the good graces of PLA from week to week. This is obviously a very flawed way of thinking. The benefit of blogging comes truly from you learning from your own experiences and making sense of something that happened in your life. To enjoy blogging, it is as easy as writing about what you are passionate for. Each of us has our own enthusiasm for something particular and that is exactly what we should be focusing on. This blog that we are tasked to write every week can just as easily be a starting-off point for a personal blog that’s focused on fashion, music or even the industry of your own company.
Oftentimes, I personally forgot about the bigger picture of what blogging weekly can actually amount to and was too focused on small issues. Blogging can give that added reflection that is so necessary, as we try to sift through our daily life and become stronger leaders in our own careers and fields. Also, it can be interesting to look through past blog posts to see your progression as a writer and the events that seemed important to you at an earlier time. When you choose to write about something exciting or interesting to you, it will automatically be apparent to your reader and that at the very least will encourage them more to read your blog. To me, this is the importance of blogging, and truly why it can and should be continued even after we graduate from PLA.
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