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How Has Being a Constituent President Helped My Career?

By Cheyenne Reyes posted 11-12-2020 20:03

  
How Has Being a Constituent President Helped My Career?
By: Ali Nussbaum, MLS(ASCP)CM



How has being a constituent president helped my career?

Becoming a constituent president is a prestigious opportunity that can be extremely intimidating to young, inexperienced leaders. However, the benefits are boundless to those brave enough to accept the challenge.

A constituent society president typically serves in a 3-year term.  During the first year they have the opportunity to learn from the current president, the second year they run the society and in the final year they help mentor the new president. This structure provides the maximum opportunity for learning and leadership skills development; the key to elevating careers within the laboratory.

 

These two constituent society leaders share their experiences of how the position benefited their careers:

 

Niki Buza-

I would strongly suggest that anyone willing and able to run for state president, should. It gives you useful leadership skills and a new perspective on how a state organization operates. My current position and the advancement of my career is a direct result of being active in ASCLS and gaining the leadership experience through that involvement. The beauty of a president position is that you have at least a year (president-elect) to get a feel for what you will be doing. You don't have to immediately go into it without guidance. You will gain experience before you step into the role and grow throughout your term.

 

Ally Storla-

Hi I’m Ally Storla and I was ASCLS Georgia President for 2018 – 2019. Being a constituent society president has helped my career by showcasing my volunteer activities to my workplace, coworkers, and supervisors. This has also helped my workplace as I coordinated our last 3 meetings through a location owned by my hospital that allowed ASCLS Georgia to host low cost meetings and allowed my hospital to benefit by collecting resumes from our many MLT/MLS students in attendance. This has had great benefits as my laboratory has hired many of these wonderful students and in planning the meeting I have learned and grown a lot. I am more confident organizing events, speaking in public, and passionate about helping my state society continue to move forward smoothly.  Most importantly this role helped me connect with the ASCLS members around me when I needed to reach out to speakers and has helped encourage me to reach out for more help from volunteers. I learned from Kathy Doig’s talk about the Zen of Volunteering about how important the ask is, and it has really encouraged me to ask more. I encourage this not only in ASCLS but also in work, I ask questions and I ask for opportunities from my supervisors and administrators and this continues to open doors for my career.    

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12-27-2020 15:45

What a great blogpost! 
I think many up-and-coming professionals are frightened by the idea of taking on a larger leadership role within the professional society. It's very pleasing to hear the experiences of both Niki and Ally! Hopefully it motivates many to pursue higher, very-rewarding positions.