a. Explain your reasons for wanting to be a SOAR Peer Counselor.
b. What qualities do you possess which will make you a successful peer counselor? These are a few words that I think describe me and why:
· Joyful: my name is Joy and I continually want to live up to my name in all I do
· Creative: art (either in writing, dance, music, or visual art) becomes a part of any job I do because it is how I express my thoughts, heart, and ideas
· Worker: I grew up on a farm and am not afraid of difficult or dirty work.
· Friendly: People cannot be stereo typed and stored like boxes but instead friends and relationships grow through love and time.
· Brave: I think that Life= new things+ mess ups + ask what to do better+ try again.
· Curious: When I feel like I have learned how to do something well with my right hand I like to relearn it with my left and over the Christmas break I started reading an encyclopedia… I like finding new things to learn about and trying out things I have never done before.
c. What have you done or are you doing to achieve the Aims of a BYU Education?
· One of the ways I chose to achieve the Aims of a BYU Education was to join the BYU Honors Program. No one encouraged me to join because once I graduated it was the certificate that mattered. So, first week of freshman year I found the Maser Building on printed out campus map, wondered campus, asked for directions, found the building, and signed all the paper work. This choice has provided both educational and personal experiences that have helped me to achieve the Aims of a BYU Education.
· My most spiritually strengthening class was not in the Joseph Smith Building but in my Honor Biology Corse. The class discussions Darwin and the theory of evolution shattered my paradigm that secular and spiritual information cannot coexist. I now firmly testify that real truth is supported by both secular and spiritual knowledge.
· An intellectually enlarging experience was my freshman year in an Honors 300 level class about civilizations… it was not until my sophomore year that I would realize the numbers in front of classes signified something. Although, the entire class curium was challenging I will never forget that during one of the class discussions I voiced my opinion and my professor challenged my response. I blushed when I realized his logic was sounder and shrunk into my plastic chair. That moment changed my entire classroom approach because I realized that I can change my opinion.
· Even today I find myself pondering the theological question and reforming the answer, because I am no longer afraid to know the definite answer I am more willing to learn.
One of the ciriculum requirments is a foregn language Without a doubt learning Spanish is a
I want to be a lifelong learner.
· be seperated the spirit confirmed to me countless times, the beauty of the earth, the divinity of mankind, and how personally invested I must be to discover and explore truth.
d. How has your cultural background impacted your BYU experience?
e. How has the BYU Honor Code influenced your college experience?
· It was my senior year of High School and I sat at an oak desk gazing at my Bishop finishing the final steps of my BYU application. He asked me if I had any questions about the BYU Honor Code before he signed my ecclesiastical endorsement. I blurted that I did not know why they would not let us light candles in the apartments… it had bothered me; in general all the rules I had read through bothered me. I grew up in Utah Valley and I had heard all about those BYU zoobies: those brainwashed rule lovers. As I sat in that worn out chair across from my Bishop my only fear was that all of those rules would force me to forget who I was. As I sat listen to my Bishop explain the reasons BYU does not allow students to light candles in the apartment I silently vowed that because I signed that I would keep the rules I would keep the rules, but the instant the rules made me forget who I was I would respectfully leave BYU. In that worn out chair I never imagined that the rules at BYU would help me to remember who I am. Now, I don’t think of the BYU Honor Code as a list of rules but more like a personality check list. Am I chaste? Am I modest? Instead of asking myself if I cheat I find myself striving to become an honest person. Against all my expectations living the BYU Honor Code has helped me to find myself.
f. List your extracurricular leadership and involvement experiences. What are the most valuable things you have learned through these experiences?
Brigham Young University Tribe of Many Feathers Historian Officer 2011-2012
Adopt a Grandparent Trinity health and rehabilitation volunteer.
I used to image great leaders standing in front of micophones and always starting something new: Martin Luther King Jr., used to think of leadership I thought of one thing, a speaker. The image of microphones. Of all of the leadership, club, and organization experiences that have changed freshman year I volunteered to adopt a grandparent. It started something like this: my freshman roommate blustered into our bedroom fumbling her American Heritage textbook while explaining that our lives would be better if we started to volunteer off campus and we would both have priceless experiences if together we visited the local retirement home and adopted a grandma. Yeah, I agreed that sounded good and the next week I drove us to volunteer at a nearby retirement home. She had to do community service hours for her American Heritage class and I had a car… we were a perfect pair.
That first semester was a learning curve to say the least. The building rooms and rooms of cream colored walls filled with people laying lifeless
Fortuntly I learned fast: never eat the free treats on the table because they sugar free, gluetten free, and flavor free; always stop to talk to the two women playing Sorry because they want to show everyone their new color of fingernail polish,
Why? Out of dancing across the Western United States, volunteer teaching on the Navajo Nation, learning to Native American Hoop Dance, serving in local elementary schools, … do I believe that adopting a grandma has changed me most? It is the silence. College life is amazing, just what I like, new places, new problems, new thoughts, new people, everything is energized on the new and the creation. I feel that most of my leadership experiences have been packed with the new and excitement, but visiting Clara a few times a month was embedded in silence.
There is nothing new about believing that all people have rights, there is nothing new
She
