City Year application advice
Here is one of my essay prompts:
City Year corps members work together on diverse teams everyday to serve children and youth as well as address larger community needs. What does teamwork mean to you?
I also heavily collaborated with Asia (my second-in-command/assistant) and Druhna Ania (the token adult supervisor). I was technically the one in charge, but I couldn't have made it through those two weeks without their help.
My other option is writing about being one of four campus campaign managers for Teach For America. We are, technically, a team. And we do work as a team. Sort of. I mean, we share responsibilities and help each other out when necessary (ex/ oh I scheduled this presentation for this day but I can't make it myself). However, we barely see each other, and we usually only talk during PR sessions. We do offer suggestions at those meetings, but it just isn't the same. Honestly--we mainly just put up flyers, chalk, table, find potential candidates, and give short presentations. There's only so much that you have to talk about together.
I think that my experiences at the Scouting Jamboree were much more intense. Simply being in charge of 20 girls for two weeks while thousands of miles away from home would have been intense enough for me--adding constant health problems to the mix made it almost overwhelming. There has been nothing comparable with TFA. Yes, on paper TFA work looks more successful, but I really don't feel like I have many meaningful things to say.
My main concern is that City Year won't consider what we did at the Jamboree to be teamwork. I even looked up the definition of team:
Teams differ from other type of groups in that members are focused on a joint goal or product, such as a presentation, completing in-class exercises, taking notes, discussing a topic, writing a report, or creating a new design or prototype.
Here is one of the most commonly cited definitions:
"A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they are mutually accountable." (Katzenbach and Smith, 1993)
Similar definitions of a team include:
"A group in which members work together intensively to achieve a common group goal." (citation unknown)
http://tlt.psu.edu/suggestions/teams/about/definition.html
I think being part of the leadership at Jamboree counts...
City Year corps members work together on diverse teams everyday to serve children and youth as well as address larger community needs. What does teamwork mean to you?
- Describe a time when you worked on a team and the most significant thing you learned from that experience.
- How might that learning contribute to your City Year team’s success?
I also heavily collaborated with Asia (my second-in-command/assistant) and Druhna Ania (the token adult supervisor). I was technically the one in charge, but I couldn't have made it through those two weeks without their help.
My other option is writing about being one of four campus campaign managers for Teach For America. We are, technically, a team. And we do work as a team. Sort of. I mean, we share responsibilities and help each other out when necessary (ex/ oh I scheduled this presentation for this day but I can't make it myself). However, we barely see each other, and we usually only talk during PR sessions. We do offer suggestions at those meetings, but it just isn't the same. Honestly--we mainly just put up flyers, chalk, table, find potential candidates, and give short presentations. There's only so much that you have to talk about together.
I think that my experiences at the Scouting Jamboree were much more intense. Simply being in charge of 20 girls for two weeks while thousands of miles away from home would have been intense enough for me--adding constant health problems to the mix made it almost overwhelming. There has been nothing comparable with TFA. Yes, on paper TFA work looks more successful, but I really don't feel like I have many meaningful things to say.
My main concern is that City Year won't consider what we did at the Jamboree to be teamwork. I even looked up the definition of team:
Teams differ from other type of groups in that members are focused on a joint goal or product, such as a presentation, completing in-class exercises, taking notes, discussing a topic, writing a report, or creating a new design or prototype.
Here is one of the most commonly cited definitions:
"A team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they are mutually accountable." (Katzenbach and Smith, 1993)
Similar definitions of a team include:
"A group in which members work together intensively to achieve a common group goal." (citation unknown)
http://tlt.psu.edu/suggestions/teams/about/definition.html
I think being part of the leadership at Jamboree counts...