Kaela Wierenga

Honors Portfolio

Development of Leadership

Major: Zoology

Living in the RISEbio Learning Community

As I was starting college in the fall of 2020, I signed up for the RISEbio learning

community not knowing what I was getting myself into. I was excited to be offered to apply for

the program thinking it would just be a group of biology majors in the same classes, living on the

same floor, later participating in undergraduate research. We would all be with each other for our

first year of college in the dorms together. This is what the learning community was, but it was

so much more. Not only did I meet my roommate who continued to be my roommate for the next

two years and one of my closest friends for life, I met other students in my community who have

taught me so many new ideas. We are all biology majors but have a different emphasis on our

majors ranging from biomedical sciences to zoology to plant science. We were all taking the

same classes but understood different concepts in different ways.

Part of being a leader in this community was taking everyone’s unique backgrounds and

interests and finding the common ground to grow together as a group. It was most difficult for

me since I am from South Dakota whereas all the other first years in our community were from

Minnesota. Even the people who were interested in specific topics all had differing knowledge

and experience. I had done volunteer work at a zoo and aquarium, so I had more knowledge of

animal care where my friend had just grown up on a farm with chickens and farm cats and dogs.

It was immensely helpful to form study groups for each class where we all had our strengths to
share so we all could achieve more. Living together made us see each other more outside of

classes and labs and helped to start our careers at MNSU in a happy and inclusive way.

When it came to starting our undergraduate research projects in the spring of 2021, we

were all nervous as to which research stream we were getting into and what exactly we were

going to be doing. I joined a microbiology stream in which we evaluated the virulence of the

endonuclease I in the fish pathogen Flavobacterium psychrophylum. Part of being a leader not

only meant collaborating with my partner on our project with the endonuclease I, but also

helping others in the microbiology stream with their varied factors of virulence. We would bump

into each other after labs in our community and ask how things were going, how gels turned out,

how the progress was on our blog posts or on our presentations, and just how our lives were

going at college in a pandemic. Between my partner and I, we would each perform certain tasks

during labs. I was stronger at pipetting, so I filled the wells in a gel while my partner was

organizing our samples and setting up the samples. As we wrapped up the Spring 2021 semester,

we got down to our final presentations. Not only was it exhausting preparing and presenting your

own project but seeing what everyone else in your community had worked on, prepared, and

presented. While this was our last semester living together in the learning community, we still

felt connected as we moved into the fall of 2021, living in different areas, continuing our

research, still seeing each other, and asking how things were going, just like we never left the

learning community.

In the fall of 2020, I took Honors 201 and participated in the Strengths-Finder Test. This

test has you answer questions about leadership scenarios and then gives you a report about your

strongest qualities based on your responses. My top three strengths were achiever, responsibility,

and discipline. Achiever shows that I have a drive and try to accomplish something tangible
every day. Responsibility shows that I follow commitments to completion. Discipline shows that

I apply structure to my world. In the learning community, not only did I have my own personal

structure, but I helped others as well when we participated in activities or had study sessions. I

also followed through with RISEbio and the learning community through our three-semester

requirement and continue to follow the community past my completion. Another one of my

strengths was connectedness. This just makes sense for me because I try to include and listen to

everyone. I have found when you are inclusive, everyone grows stronger and learns from one

another. In a learning community, this trait is important since we all come from diverse

backgrounds and likely do not know each other well. This helped us all grow together in our

classes and research.

I personally am taking this wonderful experience and want to apply it to my future career.

Biology may seem easy, but it can be stressful. By learning about leadership in my community, I

can use those skills in future jobs to help my coworkers and myself so we can all accomplish our

goals. Since I have learned what type of leader I am, I can use that to my advantage when I need

to be a leader in future situations. I know what my strengths are so I can help others see their

strengths. Some skills I learned were how to operate in a smaller environment, how to manage

long stretches of time in one area and having to collaborate with certain people for a long time.

Having that strength of being disciplined really helped me to concentrate and not get

overwhelmed and to let others step up as a leader. Not only did we all grow as leaders in the

learning community and in a lab setting, we also all became a group of friends who want to see

each other succeed and help assist and see the new streams grow and learn just like we did.
 References

Kaela Wierenga’s Strengths-Finder Report

file:///C:/Users/aleak/OneDrive/Documents/College/First%20Year%20(2020-

2021)/Fall%202020%20Semester/Honors%20201/Assignments/Competnencies/Leadership/Stre

ngths%20Finder%20Report.pdf