Week 1 Post: Curtis Kocher

Hi everyone,

My name is Curtis Kocher, and I am from Oxford, Michigan. For those of you that do not know, Oxford is about an hour north of Detroit, Michigan. 

Right now, I am a sophomore here at Michigan State University. I am studying Business Finance and I was just accepted into the Broad School of Business. With this major, my ultimate goal would one day become a stockbroker on Wall Street. My father is a financial analyst and ever since I was young I wanted to do something close to what he was doing.

I took this course for two reasons. First off, I want to become a more complete leader. I have had many opportunities to grow as a leader in the past and I have learned what it takes to be an effective leader, yet I feel that I haven’t been able to demonstrate all of my leadership qualities recently. I hope that this class gives me the insight on how I can demonstrate leadership on a regular basis, and not just when I am placed in leadership positions. Another reason why I wanted to take this course is so I can improve my communication skills. I feel that one of the qualities I have been lacking for a long time is to effectively communicate my ideas to different individuals. I hope that this class will teach me different types skills that I can use in order to convey messages to different people.

For this summer, I plan on just taking this class and working as a waiter at a local restaurant. I would have taken more classes this summer, but I am in a position where if I take any more I would have to graduate early and I definitely do not want that. My family and I are also going to travel to the west coast this summer to see some family in Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. Besides all of that, I plan on relaxing, and helping my sister get ready to go to college at the University of Michigan.

An artifact that represents me as a leader would have to be my running shoes from high school. These shoes have many holes in them and have been worn down to next to nothing but I still keep them to remind myself how much work I had to put into to achieve what I wanted in high school. In high school, I was the captain of both my schools track and cross-country team for two years. I feel that for someone to be a leader, they need to never give up on their dreams, and endure through hard times. These shoes, like I, never gave up and endured through hard times throughout the season and I feel these shoes emulate the type of leader I was in high school.