HDF 190: FLITE (FIRST-YEAR LEADERS INSPIRED TO EXCELLENCE)

URI MINOR IN LEADERSHIP STUDIES, CENTER FOR STUDENT LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

CORE REQUIREMENT FOR THE LEADERSHIP MINOR

LEARNING CONTRACT

Goal: Achieve the position of full campus tour guide by going through the approximately
three month training process.

Activity: Endure training and be able to give a full tour all while watching my strengths
and values in action. I further developed them as well by practicing them throughout the
process

Evidence: Picture of me giving my first tour after completing the training process

Annotation:

At the beginning of tour guide training when we first constructed our learning
contract draft I was experiencing a mix of excitement, nervousness and eagerness to
learn. After working hard for a majority of the semester in training, I completed my first
full tour with visitors to the University and have given multiple since then. Throughout
the entire process I was able to see myself grow as both a person and a leader, while
putting the strengths and values I learned about in class into use in real life situations.
Before we could even think about giving a tour we had to know the information
and facts about the school. Our first task was to have specific sections down and knowing
every bullet point. We were tested on a weekly basis by doing mock tours, which
involved walking through the tour route with a trainer and reciting facts and stories. It
was during this task in particular where I saw my learner strength at full use. Absorbing
such tedious and specific information took time, but with long hours of studying I fully
grasped the material. Making sure I learned this material meant I had to work hard and
make time in my schedule to study the facts. This is where achiever really helped because
I worked hard to stay on top of my information and made sure I put in time studying to
ensure I would have the facts down by the time of my mock tour.
 Adaptability was something that I used throughout the training process, but has
become even more prevalent since I have been giving full tours to visitors. During mock
tours, our trainers would often ask tough questions to try and throw us out of our flow.
These questions would often be about sore subjects that if answered in a certain way
could potentially make the University look bad, which completely goes against our
overall goal as tour guides. My adaptability strength allowed me to take these questions
as individual challenges as they were presented to me, and quickly think of positive
responses to fulfill our overall goal as a tour guide. This strength has already helped me
to answer hard questions from visitors and will continue to do throughout my career. My
strategic strength directly connected with adaptability in this aspect. It allowed me during
my mock tours to come up with creative ways to answer potentially damaging questions,
and continues to allow me to respond appropriately to visitors by not thinking too long.
Social intelligence is one of my top values and has helped me both while training,
and giving actual tours. During actual tours social intelligence has allowed me to observe
my visitors and get a sense of what appeals to them. For example, on one of my tours I
noticed somebody wearing a soccer shirt so I made sure to tell them about our athletic
teams offered at URI. I have found my social intelligence to be incredibly useful when
talking to actual visitors as well for things like saying certain jokes or not. During
training, this value was also proved useful when once again answering tough questions.
Sensing what the trainer wanted to hear based off of the question asked and have a feel
for the situation allowed me to thrive in my responses. Overall, my experience training
and becoming a tour guide for the University has allowed me to learn more about myself
and practice my strengths and values in a positive environment.