Abhishek Malkan
Hello! My name is Abhishek Malkan, and I’m a senior majoring in Biological Sciences with a minor in Chemistry. In May 2017, I will be Graduation with Leadership Distinction in Community Service (GLD-CS). After I graduate, I plan to attend medical school and become a physician. Currently, I'm open to any specialty, and so I will likely decide on which field to enter during my clinical rotations.
Reflecting on four years of college is essential in order to see how progression through college has modified or brought changes to one's personal growth. The biggest impact, while being in college, I was able to make was through community service. While serving, I learned many important qualities that are necessary for the community and society as a whole to progress further. Through my pathway of community service in Graduation with Leadership Distinction, I was able to link my within-the-classroom experience with beyond-the-classroom experience to come up with the three most important key insights. These key insights reinforced or changed the way I understood specific concepts. Below are the three key insights
that were concluded based on analyzing the relationship between in-class concepts to real-world application.
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An Individual’s performance is enhanced through group contributions.
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Through observational learning, people not only learn but are also motivated by observing.
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To reach a goal, co-operation between individuals is necessary.
Now, these key insights were all derived from the community involvement that took place during the entirety of college. The first key insight is very reflective of people working in groups. Working in a group setting makes an individual accountable for his/her own part. Not only people do their part but their performance is increased by having a sense of investment in the ongoing situation. There are different reasons for people to get engaged in community service but one of the common ways is through observing other people. People observe other people serving the community, and they want to do the same. The key here is not only do they model other people, but in the process of serving, they might be motivated to take on more responsibilities. The reason behind the motivation could include variety of factors, including personal growth, or a feeling of gratification by doing serviceable deeds. In general, it is more efficient and productive if a group works together towards completing a goal rather than an individual trying to complete the task by himself. Strong cooperation is required between individuals of the group to ensure smooth functioning of the process that leads to the completion of goal. Examples will be provided in the key insights section on how these points were discovered based on certain events.
Community service not only helped me look at a big perspective of “why” do we do certain things but it also contributed to my personal growth. Through serving the community, I was able to improve my leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills. These skills are very useful while serving the community, and in the workplace. Speaking of the workplace, the key insights mentioned above can be applied to my future profession of medicine. By working as a team with nurses, physician assistants (PA’s), and the rest of the hospital staff, my performance as a doctor will increase due to my accountability and motivation to do more. It will also take strong cooperation among us to provide the quality patient-centered care that patients deserve. For impacting the community, I have a plan of providing basic healthcare check-ups to low-income communities who do not have the other means of getting healthcare. Detailed information on this project is can be found in the Leadership section. The discovery of key insights not only reinforced the way I think of specific concepts, but also, for future purposes, has given me guidelines on how to work most effectively in a given profession.
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