Georgian Court University Empowers Young Women to Succeed

Chelsea Sikora, Graduate Assistant for Women in Leadership Development (W.I.L.D.) at Georgian Court University, explains how W.I.L.D. is empowering young women with tools and life skills they can take into the real world.

9/9/17 #3021

Excerpt:

"We are pleased to welcome Chelsea Sikora, Graduate Assistant for WILD, W.I.L.D, Women In Leadership Development at Georgian Court university. How you doing? I'm doing very well. How are you today? I'm doing great. Have you always had this positive upbeat attitude in all seriousness? I think so. Where does it come from? I don't know. I think I've always just kind of been a goofy kid. I like to smile. I like to make other people comfortable, so… That's a good skill. That's actually a leadership skill. Oh! Well... It's interesting. In the context of this, WILD, Women In Leadership Development, What is it and why does it matter? Well, Women In Leadership Development is a program through Georgian Court University and it focuses on equipping young college women with the skills that they need to survive outside of Georgian Court to enable them to be confident leaders, but also to be successful in their chosen careers. How did you get into this? I was a member of it. My freshman year, I walked onto Georgian Court campus a nervous little freshman not quite knowing what I was going to do, what it meant to be in college, and I met the most incredible person, and her name was Carissa Merckle. What's her name? Carissa Merckle. Go ahead. And she was my first year seminar orientation leader, so she was an assistant in the first class that I had in college and she was so incredible. She was just a ray of sunshine. Was she a mentor? She was, and she was actually a mentor in the WILD program and talking to her, you could just feel the confidence radiating off of her and I wanted to be like that and I didn't know where my path was going to take me, but if that was the end result, I knew that I wanted to be a part of WILD. So, you become part of this organization. What do they teach you? Well, some of the things that you learn about in WILD are to learn more about who you are because you can't lead others if you don't have an understanding of your own values and what it is that your strengths are, and so a lot of your first year and second year in the program is that personal reflection and development and then your third year and fourth year, it's really highly focused on preparing you for a career. So, you're equipped with skills to go into a job interview, to successfully navigate the different aspects of career building from writing a resume to pitching yourself, and to be able to advocate for yourself and your strengths..."