It is so important to be authentic and to be proud of who you are. I don’t like to generalize often, but I feel like most Stevens students, faculty, and administrators all have a certain down-to-earth goofiness and aren’t afraid to show it. I love that modest attitude towards how weird we all are because it’s that comfortableness that allows us to truly get along and be a community.
Although “Excellence in all we do” is one of the university’s core philosophies, I like how Stevens does not have an overwhelming amount of pressure to be perfect. At Convocation, a friend and I were giggling over quirks throughout the ceremony. The little things: the marshall placing the torch the wrong way, President Farvardin nudging awards recipients to stand on his other side, the photographers calling back an awards recipients beginning to leave the stage. They were small but noticeable, and nobody really cared that much because Stevens is characterized by the friendly humanizing of our best community leaders.
This is something I developed an understanding of during orientation leader training. The “O-Team” goes through a week of ice breaker games, fun team bonding, and inclusive communication exercises. One of the biggest takeaways was learning to let myself be silly around groups of people. In a game called Farkle, people play Rock, Paper, Scissors to evolve through different stages: egg, chicken, hawk, dinosaur, and eventually prince/princess/prince-person. Most of the gestures aren’t too intense or strange, but I put myself out of my comfort zone to do my very best chicken impression – squawks, head shakes, and flapping wings. It was fun and I made people laugh, and I feel that really let people know that they could be themselves and be weird without being judged at Stevens.
Be First to Comment