Graduating from college and entering the “real world” is often a period of identity shift that mirrors the milestones that a college freshman experiences. You’re on your own in an entirely new way, and you will be challenged in a strange, new environment that sometimes makes you feel like a teenager in an adult costume. However, this time around, you may have a boss, no summer vacation, and lack a large community of peers your own age.
As an O∆K member, when I graduated and started my first full-time job, I reflected heavily on the transition from being a leader of multiple organizations on campus to entering an environment where I am the youngest, least senior member of the team. It reminded me of the school year after the COVID pandemic. Though I was involved in the same organizations as the previous year, just in more senior leadership roles, the nature of my leadership somehow felt incredibly different.
An example of this difference was reflected in my experience, as the president of a pipeline program at my university. In this role, I helped to manage the logistics of mentorship sessions for high school students interested in a career in healthcare. In the first few mentorship meetings after COVID-19, it seemed like nothing was going the way we had planned. Students weren’t attending the sessions, mentors couldn’t find the zoom link to join, and the sessions that did occur were not successfully engaging the high schoolers. In retrospect, I think that, above all else, my optimism and insistence on improvement – even through the difficult times – was what allowed the program to gradually rebound by the end of the year. Being a recent graduate has challenged me to continue learning how to lead with my attitude, even as a new team member without a formal leadership role.
It’s now been one and a half years since graduating, and I’m looking forward to starting medical school in Fall 2023. I’ve realized it is another transition. But I am now beginning to understand that though these shifts in my position are inevitable, my role as an emotionally intelligent leader doesn’t need to be transient. I’ll be a first-year student once again this autumn, and I hope to remember these lessons in leadership in order to apply them once again when I enter medical school.
Rebecca L. Kalik is a 2020 collegiate initiate of the Emory University Circle. She is presently working as a research specialist in the Department of Genetics at the University of Pennsylvania.
