Old Dominion University’s LeADERS program connects students to courses and real world experiences in the areas of: Leadership, Academic Internship, Diversity, Entrepreneurship, Research, and Service Learning. This LeADERS ePortfolio shares how my experiences in all of these areas have supported my personal and professional development. I joined leaders to diversify my portfolio and connect the course and experiences I have had at ODU to something more meaningful. I believe that reflection is an important part of learning. Through composing this part of my portfolio, I have been given an opportunity for invaluable reflection. 

 

There were many challenges I faced during the courses that have contributed to my leaders portfolio, however the most stark of these was the COVID19 pandemic, which brought classes to a complete halt during March of 2020. This particularly made achieving my hours for my Service Learning course difficult. Over the course of two semesters, the goal of these two courses (NURS463 & NURS471), we were to identify a health indicator and apply them to a community, build a partnership with stakeholders and the select community, and apply the nursing process to promote health and well being. This was difficult as our community partner, Children’s Health Investment Program (CHIP) of Southeastern Hampton Roads was no longer conducting in-person visits but rather telehealth visits with their clients. This made assessing the community difficult and applying interventions even more difficult. We overcame this by putting our heads together as a group, thoroughly utilizing our community liaison for her knowledge of the aggregate, and creating an intervention our families could participate in outdoors while observing social distancing guidelines. This will be further discussed under the Service Learning tab of my portfolio. 

 

Likewise, there were many successes I achieved along the way. The biggest of these was in my Monarch Think Tank (HNRS301) which I used to satisfy the Entrepreneurship portion of my LeADERS portfolio. For this course, we were to work with a local non profit to create a new or improve an existing program. My small group worked with Bags of Hope. Bags of hope is a local organization that works with youth going through the foster care system. Often children are pulled from their homes with nothing but the clothes they are wearing and maybe a trash bag full of belongings. Originally, it was being ran out of the founders garage and she was creating bags for these youths. The aim of this organization was to create a type of storefront, where people could make donations and foster youth could come “shop” for clothes and items that were their own, in style and size. We helped her obtain storage space and reached out to other organizations on her behalf to get the ball rolling on her vision. Working with this non profit was incredibly fulfilling to know we were helping create something that would make a difference in the lives of children and young adults who were already going through something so traumatic. I am grateful to have been a part of this and consider it one of my biggest success of the program. 

 

All of these experiences have shaped me into the aspiring nurse I am today. Through these courses I have learned more about who I am as an individual and what I want for myself in the future. The skills I have learned over the completion of this program have proved to be transferable to not only my other courses, but in my professional life as an aspiring RN as well.