Dinner With Our Alumni: cuteOrange213

Hello everyone! Here we have a new dinner roundtable! For those that are new, Dinner With Our Alumni is a series of short interviews with Leadership Development Program (LDP) alumni. These help us reflect upon the program and help our current trainees as well as spread awareness about the program! If you like them, do share!

For this week, we have @cuteOrange213! Parvi, commonly known as Orange, started their journey as a listener on here in July 2019! They are very active in the Teen Listeners Room (I swear, they are one of the nicest teens!) as well as their PMs and the Eating Disorder Support room! (This is a sign to hit up Orange whenever we'd like xD) Orange sees themselves as creative yet messy (what an artful balance!), and are part of many roles in our community. Ranging from Safety Patrol to Support Team leader to Project Agent - Orange does it all!

What was on the menu? Since it was a post-dinner meal, we had some ice-cream! Chocoalte ice-cream for Orange and Butterscotch for me!

So, without further ado:

What made you join the LDP?

I joined the LDP as I wanted to sharpen my leadership skills as I was about to receive a very high role in my school club and I wanted to get into more roles here on Cups.

How was your experience doing the coursework?

My experience was pretty awesome as I didn't have any issues with the coursework overall.

Did you find it easy to navigate through the forums for each course?

Yes, it was quite easy to navigate through the forums for each course as I have saved all the links in a folder right at the beginning when I started out, so I wouldn't lose it.

How did you dedicate your time to doing the coursework?

I would say I wasn't the greatest at managing my time doing the coursework as I tend to do a few at a go as it was tough for me to put aside time each week. But generally, I tried to make sure I have some progress on the coursework every two weeks.

Which course did you like the most? And why?

I enjoyed the first course the most as it was really interesting to learn about all the other people joining LDP and the course was also really lightweight which was amazing.

What role did you get into after the program? How are you liking the role you got into for the LDP?

I have gotten into quite a few roles during and after LDP. Listing a few of the highlights such as Support Team Leader for Eating Disorder Support Team, Teen Community Star, Chat Support and many more. I do really enjoy all the roles I get into and I continuously check and make sure that I am only in roles that I actually like to continue in.

If you had to give one tip to the current trainees, what would that be?

I would recommend really diving into the courseworks. Sometimes we tend to take it lightly and not see the bigger picture, but each module does have its own purpose in training us to become a much better leader overall.

What can we do to make the program better?

The program could be improved if maybe there could be a clearer clarification on the amount of times the forms(such as the weekly forms) should be filled and also it would be better if the forms could be more accessible.

Thank you for reading till here! I would love to hear any suggestions/question ideas that I can add to this series. If you are an LDP graduate and would love to contribute, please PM me so we can set up our dinner! Meanwhile, please give a big shout-out to @cuteOrange213 for doing this!

If you want to apply for the LDP, please click here.