Another Blog About Summit Vision
This past Friday many in the MLHR cohort (mainly first years and a couple of second years) went to a place called Summit Vision. It is a place where many organizations (corporate and student) go for team-building, group bonding, and in our case, learning how to facilitate. We were told that HR people may be called to serve as some kind of facilitator for the company we work for in a similar situation. This is true, because my mom had to do something like this YEARS ago at her job (which I was surprised until I saw video footage). Actually, probably sooner than receiving full-time job offers since some of us will help facilitate similar activities for the first year cohort next year during their Orientation - which is already weird calling the incoming class first years as I am about 4 weeks from entering my second year.
Now I will be the first one to tell you that I did not want to go to this for a number of reasons.
1. I am not an outdoors person. If I was meant to roam the outdoors I clearly would have been born as a jungle cat or something.
2. I do not like heights due to a fear instilled upon me genetically by my mother. Apparently I give off that vibe, too, since one group was taking bets on whether I was going to do the zip-line. (Most bet against me and won.)3. Even though I am utterly terrified of heights, this experience was kind of old news to me. The first time I did a ropes course was when I was in SEVENTH GRADE. It was a requirement for my gym class, and I was crying and quite sure I was hitting my classmates below me with my tears. Then, I was required to do it in high school (and run a mile which is completely irrelevant but obviously my secondary educational system was cruel). Oh wait...I also did it sophomore year in college too. Every time I got up there, did activities, and took years off of my heart from shaking on the ropes. Many people who went had never done anything like this, so I was wondering why everyone was so excited. For me personally, it was just another trip around the carousel. Plus, since I went to undergrad here, I'm pretty sure that was my 4th or 5th time being at Summit Vision.
4. Like many others, I would've rather not have taken the time out of my paycheck from missing work that day or time out of my studies.
However, even through all of these things, I still went and had a pretty good time. I got up on one task called the X-Files and was completely stumped on how to get pass the first rope step. Then I tried the rock wall but kept falling and I kept smacking against the wall, and almost injured myself. I climbed up halfway through up to the zip-line as well, but was practically choking on my own heart so I came down (thank you cohort bets).
A lot of the other cohorts faced their challenges, fears, and succeeded (my group's name was SuccessONE...a play on words of succession but I forget where the ONE comes from). But there were a few others who tried to step out of their comfort zone and gravitated to panic and did not go through everything. Regardless, I think everyone made some sort of attempt to step out of their comfort zone.
So if you skipped past all this detail and are still reading, I was basically over the whole ropes thing (you can only be "excited" for something that makes you shake in fear so many times).
What I did enjoy though was what others have highlighted in their blogs. I was placed in a group with people I really don't talk to that much (and apparently weigh a whole lot more than), and it was nice to be able to spend the day with them. I even got to chat it up with someone on the bus ride home, and I'm pretty sure it was the longest conversation we have ever had. Due to classes, groups, and different social interests, it can be easy for classmates to clique up in the program. It was nice to talk to different people that didn't involve class, stress, or who was going to write this part of the paper.
I'm glad I did it and I encourage all of the incoming class to do so as well (even if you have done it a million times)!
I would post pictures but I feel Fisher already did a good job with that!