Leadership.
Leadership skills, according to me, are not about having positions or being at the forefront or top level of everything one is involved with. My parents and teachers have always coached and guided me to be honest, straightforward, and speak my mind. They always guided me to trust myself and stand for what is right, not just for me but also for the people around us. One such incident where I had my first try at being a leader was to stand up for myself. I have covered that in detail in my podcast HERE. The confidence I gained to stand up for myself changed my life forever. I learned that if one gives others an opportunity to mistreat and not stand up for themselves, then others take advantage of it. That gave me confidence to be bold and fair to everyone. I also learned that I shouldn't do to others what I experienced myself. I am sure if I were to experience this happening to any of my friends or loved ones, I would stand up for them.
As I grew up, I kept on learning, and while being part of small groups in classroom learning or being part of small teams, I understood the importance of being collaborative and being part of the team. Contributing to the team with the role assigned to me and also supporting my team members where required also taught me a different aspect of leadership. Its not about you but about the team, and hence building on the power of the collective was a great learning experience.
Leadership was also about communication, and through my journey, I also learned the importance of it. These were all practical learnings; however, it was important to have formal training and apply those trainings in practice. I have completed courses improving my communication and public speaking skills, which helped me boost my confidence, and joined the following courses.
Clubs
Upon arriving in Canada in 2022, I encountered a vibrant new culture that demanded swift adaptation, given that I only had two remaining years of high school. Fortunately, I quickly formed connections with wonderful friends who played an instrumental role in helping me acclimate to this unfamiliar environment. Their support became the cornerstone of my smooth transition, and before I knew it, I found myself thoroughly enjoying my school experience in Canada.
As my school teachers and counselors introduced me to the concept of extracurricular clubs, I embraced the opportunity to engage in various activities. Presently, I am an active participant in the following clubs:
Business Club: I am the Vice President of the Business Club at my high school. I took all the learning from my previous experiences in business and decided to play a leadership role at the business club by being involved in arranging enriching events for my peers. More than that, I also have to take on the responsibility of being an executive, plan our next steps as a club, figure out ways to improve our reach, and make sure that there are available funds for all the activities that we do.
Coding Club: I am the Vice President of the Coding Club at my high school. We have weekly sessions where we practice difficult coding questions and try to improve our skills. We often solve questions from the Senior Canadian Computing Competition. As the Vice President, my responsibility is to first figure out an appropriate solution myself and then help out other members find it while discovering alternate solutions. I also spend time figuring out interesting activities and other ways to promote engagement.
Tuturing Club: My personal favorite. I have been volunteering at the tutoring center at my high school for the past year, about twice a week for a combined 4 and a half hours per week. Due to my contributions and experiences at the tutoring center, I have also been awarded the title of Lead Tutor. Volunteering at the tutoring center allows me to help out a lot of my peers in academics and also allows me to enact my firm beliefs in peer learning. On top of being a lead tutor, I often try to pitch in new ideas and try to innovate. I get immense satisfaction from sharing my knowledge, and I think that’s the best leadership lesson I could take away. Getting everyone around me to share the knowledge I know is a great satisfaction, and that’s a key lesson I see myself implementing in the future.
Tech Crew: Me and my friend founded our school’s first tech crew, and our main responsibility was to make sure that all school events and assemblies went as smoothly as planned and to handle the technological parts of all these events. We had to constantly be working with the administration staff and the teachers to relay information to the students and then manage our team's work, all of which required quite a lot of management skills.
Model United Nations and Olympiads
I have participated in multiple Model United Nations (MUN) conferences with Diplomathon as well as participated in well esteemed Olympiads and exams in STEM related subjects. These two participations helped me put all my learning into practice while competing with the best. I may not have won everywhere, but it was about learning and practicing from the best of my age group. Even though I still have won a few accolades, there has been only one outcome, and that is learning and improving for the next competition.
Zee Baccha Bollywood and Shiamak Dance Classes
Zee and Shiamak dance classes, which helped me boost my confidence when facing the public. When I did Zee, it was conceptualized in the lines of Bollywood, so we had to act, write, direct, and all in front of hundreds of people in the middle of a huge mall. Knowing that these eyes are all looking at us was a confidence booster, plus it activated the brain cells to think about a story, how to put it into a screenplay, and how your fellow participants can be engaged as directors—it had all the elements of ‘getting things done’ and it really boosted my confidence. Same thing with Shiamak; the finale dancing in front of a huge crowd was morale boosting . But the best was to have mom and my dad, who have two left feet, dance with me! Here are a few embarrassing photos of me!
