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As my final days as a Head Student of BSM approach and we've started transitioning our initiatives to the new Heads, it seems like an appropriate time to reflect on what I've learned over my journey as a student leader.
As a Head Student, I create and execute community initiatives with other student leaders. One urgent issue we faced during my tenure was the lack of online opportunities for students to socialize. To quickly address this, I led a team to run Zoom ‘break-time’ social rooms. But while over 25% of the student body participated during the first week, attendance slowly declined.
This was a personal failure because my eagerness to enact an immediate remedy prevented me from analyzing the situation more thoroughly. Realizing the need to act, I led the team in reassessing our current solution. By collating survey results and hosting focus groups, we came to understand many weren’t attending because the video calls felt like classrooms: they would be more comfortable texting when talking to strangers. The social issue was still present, but our approach wasn’t completely effective.
Our team agreed Discord was a more suitable platform because of its text-oriented focus. We subsequently opened a school Discord server, which was a success! Over 50% of the student body are members and thousands of messages are sent everyday!
This experience made me understand the need to balance timely action with sufficient data collection to ensure the effectiveness of a solution. But more importantly, by persevering and reassessing the situation instead of giving up, we were able to turn the initial setback into a success.
Being a Head Student also made me appreciate the diversity of the student body at BSM. As a Head Student, I also coordinated initiatives from other student leaders, and the variety of ideas generated by our team made me realize the creative potential of our student body. We hosted various events, from 'Art Jams' showcasing the artistic abilities of community members, to a 'Global Awareness Week' involving activities promoting mindfulness and well-being.
At the same time, it also taught me that the best projects and plans often come from combining multiple ideas from different people. I didn't need to draw up all the plans, but by making concentrated contributions and facilitating dialogue between other team members, our group was able to launch successful initiatives that benefited the student body.
I'm sure we've left the school's student body in good hands with our new leaders, and I'm excited to see what ideas they bring to the table! But even if I'm no longer in the position, I still plan to strive and be a positive influence in the community that empowers other students to learn, share and bond with each other, becoming global citizens in the process.
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