For the Leadership and Social Change minor, I had to take various classes. Many of which will help me greatly in jobs and help me in my own personal life.
Class one: Social Problems
Social Problems is a sociology class taught by Dr. Williams. This class talks about social issues within the United States. This class “Examines the nature, extent, and causes of social problems in the United States and around the globe from multiple perspectives. Emphasizes the role of social structural forces including conflicting economic, racial, ethnic, national, and gender interests in the creation and perpetuation of social problems. Discussion of poverty, work, health care, drugs, terrorism, human rights, and social change.” (HokieSPA)
This applies greatly to leadership, as being a leader, you must be able to adapt and change easily and also embrace differences in the people around you. This class taught me so much. Even though it’s not a leadership class, it still gave me a great number of skills to help me in my day-to-day life and helped me through many of my leadership and agricultural science classes. Some of those skills include the understanding of privilege, the importance of equal rights, how poverty is caused and affects people and families in more than one way, and much more. The class also taught me more about myself. I learned that I have privileges and disadvantages in this world.
The class has allowed me to broaden my perspective on the world and allowed me to have a better view of people who are different from me. This class focuses a lot on all aspects of the social change model. With the social values aspect of the social change model, the class communicates to students about the importance of our own personal citizenship and relationship with society. With the individual values of the social change model, the class forces students to think critically of themselves and their perspectives on the world, knowing what is right and wrong. With the group values aspect of the social change model, the class has students collaborate on exams. Dr. Williams found the importance of collaboration on classwork, as this is how most work is done outside of school. With group values, the class also focuses on civility within the classroom. Dr. Williams always leaves the floor open for conversation and rebuttal. Being able to view other opinions from your own and being able to form your own opinion is vital in leadership. Also being able to stand up and share your opinion, teach others and listen to others is important when being a leader in today’s world.
Artifacts:
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