Manuel Escalante

INTD 150
Where am I Going Essay
In one semester Intd-150 has given me the opportunity to discover myself as a student
and as a leader. I have learned many new things about myself in this course. I learned more about
leadership than the ability to, in a sense, Lead. I have gained an understanding of the tools that
a leader should have at his or her disposal. I have also been able to understand my connections
with my religious life through the immersion project, immersing myself into the Quaker
community. This has given me an understanding of myself that I have not been given before.
Lastly, thanks to many presentations, I have improved my skills at conflict resolution and
organization improvement. Issues that always come up during group projects have provided me
with the experience to work better with a group during times of conflict, and also in reaching our
teams goals
There are still many competencies that I feel I need improvement with. I feel the
competency I need most improvement with is my Effective Meetings Competency. While I have
attended many meetings for many different organizations, I have not had much experience in
setting up meetings and running the meeting. I feel this to be due to my planning skills. I have
never been much of a planner, but more of a do-er. And these meetings with-in organizations are
very useful for planning sessions. This is something that I do feel that I need to work on, but it
has not yet appeared to me like it is one of the most important competencies. This is also a
competency that may be hard for me to improve. I plan to start out by planning and arranging
meetings with student groups, such as projects and presentations. Then I will attempt to assist in
running meetings within the organizations that I plan on working with such as Choir, Band or
Improv.
My goal over the next five years is to gain a firm opportunity to become an aerospace
engineer. At the moment, I am an engineering major in Whittier College, taking many math and
physics classes. The engineering program will lead me to the USC Vetervi Program where I may
study engineering with hands on approaches that are not available at Whittier College. This
program is giving me a great start at my goal. My main problem that I am facing at the moment
is that I am struggling keeping my grades as high as I would like. I plan to fix this by spending
much more time studying and seeking outside assistance. This was definitely my problem that I
faced this semester. My short term goal is to pass my classes with a grade of B or higher. My
goal after graduating from USC with the 3-2 program is to eventually get a position with an
engineering firm. The obvious problem that I would be facing is the current job market. If I
cannot find a job within a six month time period I am giving myself, then I would move on to my
plan B. My plan B, would be to apply to the Air forces Officer Program. This is a goal that is
very far from now, so I have not yet completed all the research that I will need to do. I will treat
this as a long term goal and spend my time working on this.
My new mission statement is that I plan to utilize these new leadership skills so that I
may reach my goals as stated above. I understand that there is an opportunity for leadership at
every position in every field. While I know that there is always room for improving myself as a
leader, I feel like my strongest goal would be the application of the competencies that I already
have well worked out. I plan to become that leader that will understand every competency so that
I may lead my team to great achievements. Over all I hope this will help be better myself so that
I may reach a point in my life to help others and change the world.