By: Sreytom Tim

Looking back to see myself in the past two years, I cannot imagine how much my skills have been developed. Who I am now is different from who I was in the past. For my freshman and sophomore year, I was sitting in the room with other scholars being trained about leadership skills by SHE-CAN staff members. I was there learning, observing and participating in various workshops and activities. I remembered many questions were floating around in my head including how can I communicate effectively with others? How can I maintain a healthy relationship with people I know? What should I do to prepare for my internship? And so on.

Until January 2019, when SHE-CAN leadership training was held for freshmen scholars, I was not in the same position I was 2 years ago. I have worked my way up to become a trainer’s assistant. I was so excited, and I felt delighted to share my experience with the freshmen and to learn from them at the same time. I might be a step ahead of them, but there were many things that I could learn from those freshmen. They had creative ideas, talents, and beautiful dreams.

​On Friday night when Marci Rinkoff, a leadership leader, asked me to lead a mentor-mentee relationship and scholars’ experience session by myself, I was panic from the inside. In that moment, I questioned myself “how am I going to talk to hold a 60 mins-session?” Then I told myself “I can do it.”  Surprisingly, the conversation went smoothly. Freshman scholars were opened to talk about their experience both at school and their relationship with mentors, and I got to share with them about what I have done to overcome the struggles at school and what works and what do not work in my mentor-mentee relationship. Believe me, 60 mins went so fast and yes, I killed it!