Journal Update #13 - 11/21/19
It has been a difficult task reflecting back on this week. Rather than a blur of events, the past few days have been so crammed with activities that any event has no apparent significance over another. For the viewers of this post who do not know, I traveled to Baltimore to attend the 2019 NASPA Peer Education General Assembly. I went on this trip with two fellow peer educators and our supervisor, who also happened to be Emma Griffis (if any reader happens to remember her from first posts of this blog). As a side note, the peer educators are separate from our campus peer mentors, who have been an established group for many years. The peer educators serve to improve campus culture in the realms of relationships, mental health, and best practices for personal wellbeing. To those thinking that this program is similar to Active Minds at Mines and EveryOredigger, they are correct; being a part of all three initiatives has proved to be an extremely inter-connected experience where these three organizations have partnered with one another on multiple occasions. Before I discuss my Baltimore experience, it is crucial to note my talk with Justin in terms of the logistics of my practicum.
As I talked to Justin on Monday, we discussed the option of the finish date for my practicum project. As the pre-practicum deliverable is already complete, the final will be finished and displayed before the end of the semester. However, I have struggled with determining if my during-practicum assignment will be finished by finals. I have expressed this concern with Justin on multiple occasions, and he told me of the option to use the first four weeks of next semester to finish my work. At this moment, I had to critically reason whether or not to take this offer, and I now figure that I will. My end-reasonings deals with the quality of the blog. As my website, its resources, and my blog posts are included in the unfinished portion of my practicum, I believe that it is best I use Winter Break to refine each. Not only my name is going on this work, but my partners such as the McBride Honors Program and EveryOredigger are attached to my project; I want to give my uttermost effort and highest quality of work in my practicum. Rather than pulling periodic all-nighter practicum work sessions in between studying for finals, I am now affirmed in my plan to take my time. I am glad I have come to this decision, and I have communicated with Justin so that we are now on the same page.
This portion of the post is being written on a plane as I depart from Baltimore. Instead of rambling on every irrelevant detail from my trip, I will make sure to include a final video that I will work on during Winter Break to share my NASPA Baltimore experience with the other peer educators. This film will be located under the resources tab of the website. Nonetheless, the trip was incredibly effective in learning about mental health pedagogy in the collegiate level. As the other participants were all college students and faculty involved in mental health and wellbeing advocacy on their campuses, this trip was a fantastic opportunity to learn more about implementing my practicum assignments onto this campus. Through the several networking opportunities with other colleges, I also got the chance to mention my practicum project to some students. Every response was incredibly positive and most feedback pertained to making sure that the project continues to evolve in the future. If I have not mentioned it yet, I plan on continually adding quotes to the board, and anyone can add personal quotes through a toolbar on the website. As Thanksgiving is the following week, I hope to start the final steps towards contacting the library preservation technician to finally displaying my piece.