An Exercise in Leadership: My Experiences in the PLACE Program by Tapwe

An Exercise in Leadership: My Experiences in the PLACE Program by Tapwe - December 2013 Scholarship Essay

During the summer of my sophomore year in high school, I participated in the PLACE program (Planning and Leadership Across City Environments) which was dedicated to learning about city planning and participating in design projects. In the PLACE program, I, along with several others, acted as a city planner; designing a park for the Cully-Concordia neighborhood in Portland, Oregon. At the time, the Cully-Concordia neighborhood lacked a safe, enjoyable location for children to congregate. By taking part in a project to design one, I helped to improve the social atmosphere of the Cully-Concordia neighborhood.

I collaborated with nearly twenty of my peers to design the various facets of the park; from strategically placed fences for protection to environmentally safe watering systems. Many of the co-designers had enormously different visions for what the park should look like and how it should run. In our Google document, dedicated to writing a proposal for the park, discussions often became heated as different visions clashed and designers argued.

Up to that point, I had stayed extremely quiet in the group, making my design contributions in silent, internet-related ways. Tired of the unproductive disagreements that pervaded our discussions, I decided to take the reins and attempt to reach a compromise. Enough was enough and seeing as our deadline was coming up in three weeks, someone had to take charge. When called up to pitch my ideas, I recommended several compromises that combined the various ideas of the contributors into one, single, connected vision. Although the die-hards of the group weren’t satisfied with compromise, my suggestions helped the group to work more productively and reach a consensus. Subsequently, we wrote our proposal faster and designed the park with a more holistic view of the challenges that afflicted it, using the various contributions from everyone in the group.

The final project was magnificent. An animated video was created to display the park’s appearance and original music to match the video was added, creating a comprehensive vision for the park. The Cully-Concordia neighborhood welcomed our proposal and construction of the park was slated to begin in 2015! By the time we finished, I felt as if I had made a lasting impact for the Portland metropolitan area. My contributions towards creating a compromised vision for the park helped to give the group an ideal for which everyone could strive. By working together, we worked far more efficiently than if we had argued and fought our way towards the final vision of the project.

As a consistently quiet person, I surprised myself by my ability to stand up in front of the group and take lead. Although my suggestions for compromise helped the group, they helped me even more. The amount of personal growth that I gained in PLACE far outweighs the knowledge that I gained about design. I learned that I could lead people. Ever since PLACE, I have become more outspoken and confident with my own suggestions. I speak up in class more, contribute with my suggestions more and generally feel more confident with who I am and what I have to offer.