From Ambassador to Adult, Part 2: How I Transitioned Girl Scouting into the College Experience

A couple months ago I wrote a blog post on transitioning into the volunteer role as an adult from my role as an Ambassador Girl Scout.  To be honest, I think I made the transition seem a lot easier than it actually is.

Keeping up my involvement was a lot harder than I had anticipated.  My first semester college certainly presented me with quite a few challenges.  I had to adjust to a completely new and independent lifestyle.  I didn’t have my mom coming into my room every morning to make me go to class.  I had to shrink my personal living space by quite a bit, but I would say I’ve made impressive use of my 9 x 7 foot rectangle in my triple-person room.  Not only did I have to adjust to college but also I had to adjust to the Big Apple.  After living in suburban South Jersey for 18 years, the shift definitely caught me off guard.

Despite all those changes, I never forgot what Girl Scouts had done for me.  I have certainly applied the dedication and leadership skills I developed in Girl Scouts in the classroom setting, and the time management skills I learned from my Gold Award and my role as the Ambassador for the Board of Directors certainly helped me make good use of my study time.  And I every time I saw a Girl Scout troop selling cookies in the student center, I made sure to make a donation.

After the crazy adjustments I made fall semester, I was ready to ease back into my involvement.  I joined USWIB, Undergraduate Stern Women in Business, and began collaborating with the Community Service Chair.  Our club hosted a week-long celebration of women through Women’s Week, and what better way to serve the Girl Scouting community than to host a Her Story Try-It Workshop?

Thanks to my years of experience in Girl Scout programming, the activities I planned out made for a very successful event.  We invited Brownie Girl Scouts from all five boroughs to join us in celebrating women on Saturday, April 3rd, at Tisch Hall, the NYU Stern School of Business undergraduate building.  We had one troop from Brooklyn, two troops from Harlem, and one troop from Chinatown come to explore what it means to be empowered as a woman.  Our Brownies created a timeline of their future goals, participated in an action story about Juliette Low, and made a fun foam door hanger to honor a woman they admired, all while rocking out to the likes of Taylor Swift, Michael Jackson, and Justin Bieber.  They also brought toiletry donations that we delivered to a women’s shelter in the Lower East Side.

I definitely feel this workshop has given USWIB a great opportunity to expand its volunteer opportunities with the Girl Scouts of Greater New York.  I am hoping to continue this collaboration into the fall semester with a larger badge workshop for Juniors and possibly Cadettes/Seniors/Ambassadors.  Knowing we had members interested in volunteering for the Girl Scouts and helping girls learn about a field we are all passionate about made me realize the power of my experience as an Ambassador and now an Adult Girl Scout.


I'll keep you posted on my future badge workshop endeavors!  For now, it's time for me to start prepping for finals!

Yours in Girl Scouting,

Kat Corson

From Ambassador to Adult: How to Transition Girl Scouting into College and Beyond

Just a few short months ago, you marched in to Pomp and Circumstance, listened to some bittersweet graduation speeches, and held that permanent symbol of your past four years of hard work in your hand - you graduated from high school.

Now it's September, and you're probably starting on a new chapter in your life - whether you're working for a couple years, pursuing a career in the arts, working in the armed forces, or pursuing a higher degree of education, you've changed - you're an adult now.  And as we've all learned courtesy of Spiderman, "with great power comes great responsibility."  Perhaps you've been swamped with registering for classes and shopping for college or been overwhelmed with the demands of daily life, but have you taken a moment to think, "How can I continue with Girl Scouts?"

Consider some of these suggestions to give back to the community that gave you so much:

DISCOVER:
Contact your local Girl Scout council - whether it's GSCSNJ or a new council, find out how you can volunteer.  To find a council in your new locale, check out http://girlscouts.org/councilfinder/ and plug in your new zip code.

Serve on a community committee - did you earn your Gold Award?  See if there are any openings available as a member of the council's Gold Award committee!

See what community service opportunities are available in your area - see if you can help a local Girl Scout troop by assisting them in volunteering in your new community.

CONNECT:
Find a club or group at your school for your particular interest - Love ballroom dancing? Enjoy writing newspaper articles?  Check out the club fair and join a club at your new school of your own passion to see if you can work with the members to plan an event for local Girl Scouts.

Join a group that serves women's interest related to your profession - Engineer?  Look for a chapter of Society of Women Engineers.  Interested in business?  See if there's a Women in Business Club.  Look on your college's website at the club directory to find the group that best matches your professional interests.  I'll be joining USWIB (Undergraduate Stern Women in Business) at NYU - I talked to their officers at the club fair and found out they are working on collaborations with local Girl Scouts!

Work with Greek Life - Greek life big at your college?  Interested in rushing this fall?  Most sororities serve the community as part of their activities - see which ones would want to work with Girl Scouts!

TAKE ACTION:
Develop an outreach department - create or assist in developing an outreach department in a club, and have your club develop programming linked to Girl Scouts.

Run badge workshops or journey programming - collaborate with leaders and create your own pathway for helping Girl Scouts discover, connect, and take action.

Chair a Thinking Day event - chair a Thinking Day event and see which cultural clubs on campus would be willing to volunteer to help your cause.

Create a chapter of Campus Girl Scouts - if your school does not have a chapter, find five friends and petition to your college or university to start a chapter of Campus Girl Scouts.  For more information, check out http://www.girlscouts.org/join/campus/ .

To all the soon-to-be alumnae (after all, we're still technically ambassadors until October 30th!), consider these options as your transition into your new life as an adult and as an Adult Girl Scout.  If none of these seems right for you, develop your own adult pathway!

Yours in Girl Scouting,
Kat Corson