Leadership? by Mariah

Leadership? by Mariah - March 2015 Scholarship Essay

The question I am presented with is: Are leadership skills necessary for college success? And upon thinking about it, I realized that this is way more of a complex question that I originally anticipated. What I mean is, does it take leadership skills to wake up at 8:00am and walk to class? Does it take leadership skills to sit in that class and take good notes? Does it take leadership skills to sit in your room and do well on your homework? Turn in said homework? Earn a 4.0? The answer - no.

On the surface, my answer is no, it is not necessary to be equipped with leadership skills in order to be successful at college. That being said, my definition of success might look different that yours.

The bigger question then is: how do you define success in college? And is in necessary to have leadership skills in order to have that kind of success?
If a student were to graduate college with a 4.0 GPA and nothing else on his/her resume and a second student graduates college with a 3.4 GPA but participated in two club organizations, had a campus job, and volunteered throughout their studentship, who is better qualified for a job?

Leading student organizations or supervising at a student job equips students with multitudes of valuable work skills. I have been a student supervisor for over one year at Michigan State's RHS Outreach - where I supervise over 30 employees and have had to learn how to work with student workers, professional staff and guests to our programs. I have had to train my employees which will help me tremendously in my teaching career. Working with professional/full-time staff has helped me learn how to respect and know my role in the office environment. I have specific responsibilities which has made me a more timely and task oriented worker. And working with guests who are unfamiliar with the environment has made me realize that I need to be more conscious of people's needs and I have learned to cater to the reason that I have a job in the first place.

When I leave college I am certain that I will have essential leadership skills and work skills that will allow me to be successful in the work force, and to me - the prospect of being a competent worker is the true success upon graduating with a degree.

So, to answer your question, do students need leadership skills to be successful in college? No, but do graduates need leadership skills to be successful post-college? Absolutely.