What I’ve learned during my year of service

City Year has taught me so much more in this year in service than I learned in my four years of undergraduate school. It has taught me resiliency, patience, love and leadership. I learned resiliency through working multiple jobs in order to make ends meet. It was definitely hard to wake up at 5:30am everyday and have to work a second job later in the day, but I did what I had to do in order to support myself and finish out my year of service. I learned patience through continuing to push students towards success even when they wanted to give up. Specifically, one of my students would come to class and refuse to do any homework, and his grades began to suffer. I focused on helping him because he knew all of the answers during class, and I could tell he was bright, but he just needed an extra push. In the beginning he started with a D in math class and ended up with a B. I learned love through making life-long relationships with my teammates. We had to overcome a few challenges, but I wouldn’t change my team for the world. I learned leadership through getting out of my comfort zone and bringing my ideas into actions. Public speaking has always been an area of growth for me, but the support of my team and Impact Manager has helped me overcome this challenge. I believe City Year is one of the only places where almost everyone has the same goal in mind—to make a difference in the lives of youth. I look forward to seeing my team full of future doctors, educators and advocates reach their full potential.