On Leadership and the Drive

I organized the lab’s leadership role nominations this year.

Hey David, I would like to congratulate you for being nominated as the President and Infrastructure Manager! 
Your nomination is a testament to the trust and confidence of our lab members in your abilities. 

As part of the club's election process, we invite you to join us on 04/11/2024 5:30PM EST to give yourself a speech on your qualifications among other candidates!
This is not optional as someone else had entrusted their nominations on you. Once again, congratulation on your nomination and we look forward to hearing from you! 

See you soon at the gathering!

Generally every year, there’s a mixture of graduate and undergraduate students who show up to nominate someone or themselves for a position. I don’t wish to exclude anyone but over time, there’s a drive in juniors that you don’t see reflected in the graduate class. Instead, a job, a family, or a commitment replaces the drive for the graduate student.

It made me think about how much time I have left as a “junior”. Will I reach that point where every organization I join can only come second to what my life throws at me? As someone in a leadership position, I definitely value the one that can contribute the most to a project, but as a human being, I can also respect the one who demonstrates value and has to deal with juggling multiple aspects of their life.

This year, a grad student was nominated for multiple positions because he simply knows the material well. He turned it down for undergrads to have a chance. While it might be just me reading into it too much, I think that’s what I would have done as well.