IELC: Enlightenment and Perspective
At first glance, the International Emerging Leaders Conference is an intensive, nine-day, multi-cultural extravaganza that brings high-level energy to the Collegiate School campus.
On October 3, 45 delegates (and faculty participants) from 11 nations spanning four continents joined 18 senior ambassadors to research, study, and present solutions to a host of potentially devastating environmental issues. The IELC is about much more than seminars and data and final presentations, however.
It’s about enlightenment, self-awareness, respect, compassion, and that oh-so-true cliché: stepping outside one’s comfort zone.
What follows are thoughts and reflections of several Collegiate ambassadors about their immersion into the IELC.
Ellie Westermann
Everyone has been so friendly and outgoing from the get-go. We’re all similar, despite the differences: how we all live our lives, what we like, what our daily schedules are like.It’s awesome that everyone can connect and work in groups and see all their ideas come to life from these detrimental environmental problems. This conference is helping us develop a lot of good skills. It teaches us to be good leaders and communicate cross culturally. It brings global awareness. It’s helping us work better with people, and that will help down the road when we’re in college and deciding what our career paths will be.
Grant Willard
There’re a lot of unique people here. There’re no expectations about how you should act. You can be yourself, meet new people. It’s a lot of fun. My topic for investigation is really interesting. We’re working on a feasible solution to the rocket fuel pollution in Kazakhstan, where there’s a huge rocket station. There’s a huge toxin population in their air. For us, it’s a whole new world. As Americans, we aren’t influenced by pollution of rockets launching near us, but it’s their daily life. They feel it in their heads when a rocket is launched. It’s really interesting learning about what we never thought about.
Larus Reed
I don’t like talking in public that much, but now I’m doing presentations, and it’s helped me out. (My group) had an idea to take inflatable backpacks and make concrete bunkers out of them. That’s a hard concept. We didn’t think people would understand it, but they did when we explained it. Then, we played a video of it, and it was like, Whoa, that’s really cool! This is one of the best decisions I’ve done at Collegiate. Now I’m thinking about doing international business because I like working with people that I don’t really know.
Harris White
We’re all teenagers. We all have similar likes and dislikes. It’s easy just to say, Hey, what’s your name? We’re here to connect with one another. I’m in charge of the cultural fair on Friday. It’s been great working with people who speak different languages to come up with creative cultural presentations to perform. Being in a room with people from around the world has really widened my perspective. That’s good for me. I knew about other countries, but actually meeting people from other countries who have ideas and have become my friends…that’s been awesome.
Winston Willett
It’s been a great way to meet a lot of different people. When you’re meeting international students, you typically ask a lot of broad questions, but being thrown into design thinking has made me connect with them in ways I couldn’t unless I was doing these sorts of activities. (My group has been) working on redesigning the agricultural system in France by minimizing use of land, minimizing pesticide use as well as minimizing water and maximizing our output.
I definitely hope to use this new thought process when I’m working on other projects or solving other problems. It certainly will equip me with a set of skills I can use in the future.
Ellie Fleming
I’ve grown much more comfortable with people who are different from me and different from who I’m used to interacting with. I like learning how to think critically in different environments and about different topics than I’m used to. (My group, with students from Mexico, South Africa, and Lebanon) is working on minimizing the amount of endangered species trafficking in Mexico. We’re working well together. We’re comfortable bouncing ideas off of each other. It’s a hard topic to come up with a solution for, but we’ve done really well.
Emily Spalding
It’s been fascinating and rewarding to meet so many people my age who come from different backgrounds and have different stories to share and different perspectives that aren’t represented in the media.
(For example) there's a student from Lebanon in my group. It’s fascinating to hear his perspective on the Syrian refugee crisis. Lebanon is affected, and his life has been affected by it. We expected to hear him say all the horrible things that were happening, but he shared a different side from what the media has portrayed, about how he’s been able to have a sense of normalcy. He’s definitely a beacon of hope.
-- Weldon Bradshaw
Back
It’s about enlightenment, self-awareness, respect, compassion, and that oh-so-true cliché: stepping outside one’s comfort zone.
What follows are thoughts and reflections of several Collegiate ambassadors about their immersion into the IELC.
Ellie Westermann
Everyone has been so friendly and outgoing from the get-go. We’re all similar, despite the differences: how we all live our lives, what we like, what our daily schedules are like.It’s awesome that everyone can connect and work in groups and see all their ideas come to life from these detrimental environmental problems. This conference is helping us develop a lot of good skills. It teaches us to be good leaders and communicate cross culturally. It brings global awareness. It’s helping us work better with people, and that will help down the road when we’re in college and deciding what our career paths will be.
Grant Willard
There’re a lot of unique people here. There’re no expectations about how you should act. You can be yourself, meet new people. It’s a lot of fun. My topic for investigation is really interesting. We’re working on a feasible solution to the rocket fuel pollution in Kazakhstan, where there’s a huge rocket station. There’s a huge toxin population in their air. For us, it’s a whole new world. As Americans, we aren’t influenced by pollution of rockets launching near us, but it’s their daily life. They feel it in their heads when a rocket is launched. It’s really interesting learning about what we never thought about.
Larus Reed
I don’t like talking in public that much, but now I’m doing presentations, and it’s helped me out. (My group) had an idea to take inflatable backpacks and make concrete bunkers out of them. That’s a hard concept. We didn’t think people would understand it, but they did when we explained it. Then, we played a video of it, and it was like, Whoa, that’s really cool! This is one of the best decisions I’ve done at Collegiate. Now I’m thinking about doing international business because I like working with people that I don’t really know.
Harris White
We’re all teenagers. We all have similar likes and dislikes. It’s easy just to say, Hey, what’s your name? We’re here to connect with one another. I’m in charge of the cultural fair on Friday. It’s been great working with people who speak different languages to come up with creative cultural presentations to perform. Being in a room with people from around the world has really widened my perspective. That’s good for me. I knew about other countries, but actually meeting people from other countries who have ideas and have become my friends…that’s been awesome.
Winston Willett
It’s been a great way to meet a lot of different people. When you’re meeting international students, you typically ask a lot of broad questions, but being thrown into design thinking has made me connect with them in ways I couldn’t unless I was doing these sorts of activities. (My group has been) working on redesigning the agricultural system in France by minimizing use of land, minimizing pesticide use as well as minimizing water and maximizing our output.
I definitely hope to use this new thought process when I’m working on other projects or solving other problems. It certainly will equip me with a set of skills I can use in the future.
Ellie Fleming
I’ve grown much more comfortable with people who are different from me and different from who I’m used to interacting with. I like learning how to think critically in different environments and about different topics than I’m used to. (My group, with students from Mexico, South Africa, and Lebanon) is working on minimizing the amount of endangered species trafficking in Mexico. We’re working well together. We’re comfortable bouncing ideas off of each other. It’s a hard topic to come up with a solution for, but we’ve done really well.
Emily Spalding
It’s been fascinating and rewarding to meet so many people my age who come from different backgrounds and have different stories to share and different perspectives that aren’t represented in the media.
(For example) there's a student from Lebanon in my group. It’s fascinating to hear his perspective on the Syrian refugee crisis. Lebanon is affected, and his life has been affected by it. We expected to hear him say all the horrible things that were happening, but he shared a different side from what the media has portrayed, about how he’s been able to have a sense of normalcy. He’s definitely a beacon of hope.
-- Weldon Bradshaw
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