Professional Activity/Community Service Assignment

Professional activities serve to engage people in different aspects of community and education

that they may not engage with on a daily basis; thus, they further form us as people and professionals.

This month, I chose to participate in an online professional development course run by Yale university.

The purpose of this course, titled The Science of Well Being, is to teach students ‘how to be happier’ by

reducing stress and identifying the steps to live a happy and fulfilling life. The course combines the

research of clinical psychologists with the teaching expertise of coaches and professors to move students

toward a path of personal growth and success. I chose this course because it is important to keep the self

in mind while attempting to grow. Unfortunately, people often overlook the importance of taking care of

yourself, or just do projects and research to show self-care rather than engaging with healing practices. I

wanted to gain the inside knowledge this course could provide to help me reduce stress and see what

choices I could make to further my happiness in life.

From my point of view, this experience was helpful but somewhat redundant. The course was set

up on a week by week basis, but it could be completed very quickly if one put their mind to it. A lot of the

activities involved the same repetitive process - watch five videos, take a quiz, reflect. This isn’t an

engaging format; I don’t know why it is so pervasively used in educational spaces. I did appreciate the

content, however. The course provided information about studied methodologies that have been proven to

help reduce stress in day-to-day life. There were testimonials from professionals as well as students and

fellow learners. The first week served to introduce the course and importance of learning these skills in

order to make one more successful and happy. The second week focused on gratitude and savoring the

things in life that we often take for granted. The third week focused on kindness and the imperative social

connections that we must form to build communities that we value. The fourth week focused on the

importance of physical health and the necessity of exercise and sleep. The fifth week focused on the

practice of meditation. The sixth week taught about support in situational trouble and the value in setting

goals.
 Then, weeks seven through ten focused on “rewirement.” This was the essential goal of the

course - to ‘rewire’ students in a way that challenged them to focus on the integrated principles of the

previous weeks. This rewiring included weekly focuses and goals. In week seven, students are prompted

to define well-being in order to figure out what it is they value. In week eight, the focus was asking for

help as students take a journey in self-improvement, which is often a daunting task. Week nine

encouraged students to share their victories as they had come so far in this process of self-improvement.

Finally, week ten had students consolidate their learning and growth into a peer-graded essay.

In my future practice, this course will help me to make sure that I am living authentically and

healthily. This course provided new perspectives on self care, and those lessons will carry over into my

daily routine. As a nurse, it is important to check in with oneself and make sure that we are taking care of

our own health to increase long term happiness and avoid burnout. This course will help with that unique

task, which will help me to stay more present in my professional life as things are well-structured in my

personal life.