Welcome to my E-Portfolio! My name is Brooklyn Groen and I am a freshman at the University of Arkansas. I major in Biology and am planning on getting a Bachelor of Science Degree in Biology. Since high school my desire to become an Orthodontist has grown and has now become my career goal. This career has the ability to make others feel more confident and smile just a little more. The first thing I notice about someone is their smile, so this has been something that has drawn me towards the dental career field. After graduating I plan to attend dental school for the next four years and work my way into a residency program by working hard to get summer internships, interviews, and one day starting my own practice. I love being able to help out my community and enjoy the opportunity to be a part of an organization that does so many different services.
About Me
CAREER COMPETENCIES
Adaptability & Teamwork
These pictures are my artifacts that represent my Honors graduate certificate and the two biggest career competencies, those being adaptability and teamwork, I acquired through the struggle of achieving this certificate. Being an Honors graduate is one of my biggest accomplishments thus far. The past four years I encountered many struggles for example, my sophomore year of high school I tore my ACL during a basketball game, and this turned my academics into a bit of a mess. It made it difficult to stay on track and concentrate on the work at hand. With the multiple therapy sessions, I had a week that was almost two hours long on top of the extra therapy sessions I had to do on my own at home made schoolwork a difficult task. Even though this incident was a challenge it helped me acquire skills like time management, adaptability, and responsibility. I quickly had to adapt to the situation and figure out how to fit my work and exams into my new rehabilitation schedule and this made me realize why responsibility is so important.
It also helped me gain the career competency teamwork which helped me tremendously with accomplishing my goal of acquiring an honors graduate certificate. My teachers had to work with me on understanding the concepts going on during classes, my physical therapists had me work on my mobility and strengthen my leg again, and I could not have done it without the help of my family that were there every step of the way. Accomplishing this has made me realize I can adapt to many situations and turn the outcome to something good. I’m grateful I can take these skills and this competency throughout my next four years of college and see where they can lead me.
CAREER AND SELF DEVELOPMENT
Networking & Communication
These pictures are my artifacts that represent the Bud Walton Arena that holds many career fairs and special events that helped me acquire a networking experience. My other artifact is a Bud Walton career fair pen that helped me strength my communication compentency. During my high school experience, I did not have many networking experiences prior to coming to the University of Arkansas. This year I was able to attend a Business Career Fair in the Bud Walton Arena where I got to strengthen my communication skills and connect with others who are a part of big organizations and franchises. This tremendously helped me with my networking career competency in broadening my spectrum of connections and got me to realize that these types of opportunities as a freshmen will only grow my communication skills when having interviews or internships in the future. I am able to understand that the more people you have working for you or with you will make it easier to reach your goal and the more effective the tasks will be.
Receiving the pen was something I am proud of because it not only taught me the importance of networking but putting yourself out there to become more successful. During the process of getting the pen and being at the arena in general was a struggle for me and very nerve wracking because I find it difficult to have discussions and questions for those who are older than me and who are very successful. Being able to do that made me feel proud of myself and realize it is not as bad as I thought it would be. In the future I believe I will only get better at talking to business owners, teachers, and others in general to help me achieve my goals in the next couple years and I will find the next career fair much easier and I am looking forward to it!