Fellow Blog Post Week 4

July 2, 2024

During this past week, I learned more about Bridgeway’s peer model program and finished the social content piece surrounding it. I wanted to try something different than my past videos for this piece and film a more casual recording to showcase the day in the life of one of our peer models. So, using only my phone, I filmed and made very minimal edits to the video. To my surprise, this content piece received the most engagement than any of the previous videos I’ve made that required more editing and time to produce. The video received more likes, shares, and overall views. I believe this is because the recording features and focuses on one of our students and the viewers got to see engagement with staff and the lessons that are taught daily. I think this says a lot about the Bridgeway community because viewers are valuing more of the content being shown that includes the human aspect of a social post rather than the superficial aspects, like the aesthetics of the visuals. This is something I plan to keep in mind when creating the rest of the social content this summer. It is also a valuable lesson that I will carry on in future projects that I will pursue as well.

I also continued to post about Bridgeway’s summer programming. This week, we had a petting zoo and therapy dog come to visit which I have highlighted through these photos below!

Another takeaway from this week was from our fellow’s learning session at the Columbus Foundation. This is a time when all of the fellows at the foundation meet and learn about various topics of leadership. Our supervisor, Dr. Lomax spoke about the concept of power – what power is and where it can be found. He emphasized the impact of power within which builds off the fact that individual people are powerful in themselves and even more powerful when they are together. This is something that I’ve kept ruminating about because it is a new way of looking at power that hasn’t ever occurred to me before. I’ve always viewed power as something that someone has over another person. Something else that stuck in my mind is that power can come from knowledge. Dr. Lomax talked about how he has dedicated time to continually explore his thoughts, ideas, and beliefs, even when he has so many other life responsibilities. This motivates me to spend more time learning about issues that interest me and help me find my “why” or purpose in doing the work I want to do.