Service is an important aspect of being a faculty. In my opinion, the duty and responsibility of a faculty does not end in a classroom but go beyond in the smooth functioning of the department, institution, and community (both professional and public). Progress is achieved through knowledge sharing, collaboration and learning where the contribution of every individual member is accounted for. My leadership and advising experiences have taught me that collaboration and team work is key in bringing about progress and changes and facing new challenges. It also helped me to grow personally as it gave me exposure to academic and industry professionals and develop my network.
Department and Institution Level:
As a student organization leader, I have been involved in managing and organizing events and trips to conferences. These experiences have challenged me and helped me understand how an organization functions. As the popular saying goes “united we stand, divided we fall”, the credit for the successful functioning and popularity of the organization goes to every officer in the organization. As a leader, I have fostered an environment where every officer is vested in success of any event and by sharing the responsibility ensures that the workload does not fall squarely on any one individual. This in turn, aided in increasing trust, understanding and cohesion among the officers.
While organizing these events and trips, I have worked closely with senior faculty, other student organization leaders and staff in the institution. This experience has taught me valuable lessons in managing expectations of seniors and working with various other teams to march towards a common objective. I have also represented the organization in meetings with departmental committees, external advisory council and industry professionals which gave me the opportunity of public speaking, discussion and exposure both within and outside the department.
I believe that the services at institution not only helps in understanding the hierarchy instrumental in running of an university and/or college but also increases inter-departmental collaboration. Similar to departmental services, it is key for smooth interplay of various teams in achieving common goals and facing bigger challenges. The difference lies in your role as a representative of your department and communicating the common concerns and maintaining the visibility of the department at institution level.
Professional Community:
One of the integral part of academic life is to be an active participant in the professional community or area of expertise. It is important not only to gain recognition but also to be updated of the current work of your peers which paves way for collaboration. I have been part of professional and global organization such as Association for Computing Machinery and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and been a student volunteer in conferences organized by these societies. These enabled me to interact with professionals and receive their valuable feedback. I have also peer reviewed papers in various conference proceedings and journals. It has helped me in improving my own work and also contribute in improving other works.
Community:
Although services to public community might not have immediate impact on the profession as a faculty, they are helpful in fostering public relations. As one of the student organization activity, I have been involved in assisting middle school students in their after-school Computer Science club activities. Also, I have been involved in presenting my research in events such Aggieland Saturday where high school students are invited on lab tours at our department. These gave me the opportunity to interact with school students and encourage them especially females in pursuing a career in Computer Science and thus contributing to one of the pressing common goals as a Computer Scientist to increase diversity in the field.
In summary, services is important in the life of a faculty which allows them to achieve more than their own personal goals and impact others. My previous leadership and services experiences provided me the training to be a team player in achieving common and larger objectives. However, I intend to involve in future opportunities to services to department, institution and community to expand my leadership and professional qualities.