National Association of Black Accountants (NABA)
The first non classroom team experience that I have chosen to talk about is the organization I am in called National Association of Black Accountants (NABA). This organization is based on growing professionally and creating networks for business students. All of the members involved in this organization is like a family. I first joined NABA in fall 2016 and was an active member throughout my freshman year. I then became a part of the executive board as a secretary. This leadership role as a secretary has taught me a lot about working with others. There was so many cases where I had to collaborate with many different members on the executive board to get certain projects done. This taught me how to adapt to different peoples work ethic. In this position communication is so important in so many aspects. I had to make sure I am communicating with everyone on the executive board, all of the members for different opportunities, our advisors about what we are doing, and companies that visit our school to give a presentation. I worked with everyone to make sure that everyone is informed on all things. As secretary I had to make sure I was at all meetings, taking complete notes, send out weekly newsletters, keep up with the organizations email and respond to them, check in with executive board members as well as regular members, and so much that involved so many different levels of interactions with people. Though this position held a lot of responsibility I enjoyed it. I learned so many skills, whether it was something regarding emailing or overall how to balance all of the work from that and school.
Volunteer Illini Projects
The second non classroom team experience I am a part of Volunteer Illini Projects. This is an RSO that provides you with a variety of volunteer opportunities around Champaign-Urbana, on and off campus. I chose this RSO as one of my non classroom team experience. Fall 2016 I was a just an active member of this organization but eventually I became a coordinator at Prairie Winds Senior Citizen Home Spring 2017. What made me want to become a coordinator is because I love to volunteer and in this position I was able to impact others even more through my ideas when working with the other people that were involved in planning the events. As a coordinator I contributed ideas as well as helped put together events for the seniors every other weekend. I worked with the president of that volunteer location along with another coordinator. We worked together to make sure that the students volunteering with us were engaged as well as the seniors. We coordinated events according to the time of the year, for example we made snow globes in the winter due to the season. The senior citizens love and look forward to when we come to do these activities with them. This is a very memorable experience because seeing their smiling faces every other weekend feels so rewarding to know that we are making them feel special through our visits. Overall though it is three of us who plan and get all of the materials to execute the activities, we have help from the other volunteers from the University. We all work together to make sure that the senior citizens are enjoying themselves and that we are making the most of their time.