Celeste Vazquez

Reflecting on all of your courses and any other experiences (service learning, clubs, sports…) this academic year, how have you grown as a citizen and strived to improve the quality of life at school and the greater community, while developing respect, tolerance and understanding of individual differences and diversity?

Throughout my life I have met people with different backgrounds, ethnicities, and abilities. I consider every person as being equal to me and, thus, give them the respect that I would like to have in return. For example, I make sure to give my full attention to people when they are talking to me, and I also listen to their perspectives without judging them beforehand. An assignment that I once had at Lennox Academy was known as the Final Lecture. This assignment allowed me to hear the different messages and lessons that my classmates wanted to share with the class. Every person was able to create a PowerPoint Presentation in which they shared their perspectives on life and what they thought could help others in life. I demonstrated respect and tolerance towards my classmates as they presented by taking their advice into consideration and respecting their points of view. The community that I live in is not always peaceful nor is it perfect. So, in order to help, I try to maintain the peace by not getting into trouble and helping the people in my community see the good things in life. I have helped the people in my community through service learning. I remember the times when I would volunteer at Saint Margaret’s Center and help in distributing the food donations to the people that arrived to take the food home. Most of the people that arrived would thank the volunteers that were helping. Each time that they expressed their gratitude made me feel better about myself because I knew that I had helped someone and their families. The things that have influenced me to help others include a variety of things from story-telling to movies that portray how tough it can be to live in the real world. There was once a time in which I resolved a conflict between three of my friends that were working on an assignment for our Engineering class. Not everybody in the group did an equal amount of work that contributed to the project’s completion; so, they turned on each other and talked about the other’s lack of contribution. I eventually grew tired of the feud and decided to take matters into my own hands by finishing the project while everyone else was arguing. Once I finished the project with the help of one of my group members, the other two group members created the PowerPoint Presentation of the project. This process allowed things to calm down, and, once everything was over for the assignment, I had the girls resolve their differences. Next year, I plan to develop as a citizen by improving my helping skills and doing my service learning hours. Furthermore, I hope to be able to give the best advice to people if they ever ask for it in the future. Once I master listening to people and offering them advice, I hope to also be able to guide others so that they can see that everyone in this world has their own view on things and has their own culture. Another part of my plan is to join and participate in diverse clubs and extra-curricular activities that will allow me to learn about new things and meet new people. With that, although things are not always what we hope to have in life, I think that if we were to help one another along the way, it would help make things easier for each other.