Alliyah Underwood '17 Recruiting Profile

During the summer, I was nominated to serve as an Upward Bound Student Ambassador. My commitment to Upward Bound as an Ambassador was to be an encouraging and responsible person to my peers. There are new students that come every year and may need some guidance. Once I became an Ambassador, I started making connections with the newer members of Upward Bound. My peers saw me as easily approachable, and I didn’t mind being a listening ear. They started coming to me with their problems, so I would talk to them and give them advice about how I would handle certain situations. Most of them were stressed about the Summer Component. During the Summer Component, we stay on campus and take classes during the day. We are provided ACT prep classes. We are also able to do work study or extracurricular activities. I was a consultant, tutor, and friend to the people in my group. I conducted group meetings and individual meetings once a week. During my group meetings, I would ask how everyone's classes were and talk about our group projects. During my individual meetings, I could sit down with each group member and discuss their problems or advantages. My goal as an Ambassador was to lead by example.

A leader is someone who can step out from the crowd and truly do the right thing no matter what everyone else thinks. Leaders make a HUGE impact on society. Everyone looks at them and sees their every move. They take on a big responsibility because everyone is watching them--so one slip up can change everyone’s view of them. Leaders also go through a lot of criticism and judgement. They are labeled as smarty pants, nerds, kiss ups, teacher’s pets, geeks, freaks, and weirdos. People think that leaders have to be absolutely perfect. But, a true leader is one who can stand up, admit they are not perfect, then strive to fix it.  Another quality of a true leader is service--You don’t do it for your benefit but for the benefit of others.  When you become a servant for others, you also show qualities others may want to emulate.  

My goal as a person is to be a better leader and help more than just the people around me. I am committed to bettering myself in order to set an example for the people around me. I am also making an oath to construct more community service projects to help my community, church, and various donation funds.